I was able to attend a meeting this morning in my building regarding DIAD V. It was a focus group style meeting, with about 15 drivers and various management from both operations and corporate. Many of the suggestions that were mentioned here on the forum were also mentioned in this focus group.
We also got to see and hold two other "off the shelf" scanners that are currently available in the market. One looked very similar to the powerpad that FedEx uses and was made by Symbol. The other one was a little smaller and just a tad bit bigger than a pocket pc. According to the representatives from corporate, both of these off the shelf scanners have the same capabilities has DIAD IV.
The smaller one seemed to be unanimously disliked by all drivers because of the scanning angle (scanner was at the very top, compared to an angled scanner on the bottom of our DIADS now), and because of the extremely small buttons. It is nearly impossible to accurately use the buttons while wearing gloves.
The powerpad style scanner made by symbol seemed to be the favorite. I thought it felt rugged and liked the layout of the keys. The buttons weren't too big, but smaller than the ones on DIAD IV. There is no toggle/shift key, separate numerical and letter keys. They asked us if we preferred a keypad layout that was in alphabetical (ABCDFG) order or QWERTY (like the keyboard on your computer....QWERTY) Some of the older drives seemed baffled by that term, made me chuckle...
While the main focus was on hardware changes, there were also several discussions and comments made on potential software upgrades and enhancements. In my opinion, based on the comments and reactions observed in this focus group, I would not be surprised if we switched to an "off the shelf" scanner for DIAD V. No need to re-invent the wheel... if nothing else, it will probably be a slightly customized version of a scanner already out in the market. We'd have give it a brown shell, add a UPS shield, and make a few other minor adjustments.
All in all, it was pretty neat to be able to attend this meeting. While free Chickfila and orange juice is always a nice plus, it was refreshing to see management taking a sincere interest in the opinions and ideas of the drivers in the field (WHAT A CONCEPT!) Again, for those who have not yet done so, I strongly suggest you take the survey on UPSers.com and opine. They really do want your input.
*NOTE* Pictures below are
similar to models mentioned in my post. I have no way to verify whether or not these were the exact models shown to us in the focus group. Just FYI...
