Follow ORION 85% or....

[wayfair]

Brown kills a ton of trees .

I get more paper handouts than I did in elementary school!!!

 

[IVE GOTTA PACKAGE 4U]

I get more paper handouts than I did in elementary school!!!

Everything except paper towels. Wtf?

 

[toonertoo]

I get more paper handouts than I did in elementary school!!!

i know!

 

[asphaltcowboy]

For my fellow cover drivers, does anyone think it's now easier to learn a route in the blind with Orion?

For resis yes but when you have them business way out and don't know and the plan is getting you there after 5 that can tricky along with cleaning up the mess pick ups do to the order of delivery.

 

[Brownslave688]

For resis yes but when you have them business way out and don't know and the plan is getting you there after 5 that can tricky along with cleaning up the mess pick ups do to the order of delivery.

I already see a lot of the routes I run having missed businesses after we get Orion.

 

[By The Book]

I already see a lot of the routes I run having missed businesses after we get Orion.

I'm sure you won't miss them, because you know there businesses.

 

[Browntown2014]

For my fellow cover drivers, does anyone think it's now easier to learn a route in the blind with Orion?

No

 

[OLDMAN3]

I know many don't want to admit it, but Orion generally works when ran exactly as planned with the exception of sometimes placing businesses too late. Yes there are other errors as well but a willing driver can make smart adjustments without screwing up the plan.

Most of Orion's plan will make sense only if you make every p/u break from the exact stop that the solution determined. This requires that you are right on schedule (+/- 15 minutes or so) in order to make pick ups on time. This can only be known if you have an image of the solution to refer to during the day (pics of Orion screen on phone) which 97% of drivers don't have so are blind which makes Orion appear stupid to you.

Also, if you don't pull all the intended 180's that Orion planned, it will again look ridiculous to you.

Not trying to sound like an Orion advacate but the algorithm itself does actually work, not flawlessly, but if the driver works with it and makes human needed adjustments, it can work well.

In reality "the algorithm" is actually 3 (Traveling Salesman, Regular, and Baseline). They produce not one, not 3, but a myriad of "solutions" depending upon which of the 3 basic algorithms they decide to input, if they use clusters, and at what % they assign the importance of both AM and PM trace. There are other factors as well, but to say the algorithm works is to fundamentally misunderstand how ORION is implemented.

Of the hundreds of routes dispatched in my area (city, suburban, rural, industrial, retail, residential etc.) not one is dispatched using the "traveling salesman" algorithm, which would in theory produce the solution with the fewest miles traveled. The traveling salesman algorithm has historically been unworkable in real life applications. It is also shown itself unworkable for UPS routes.

The result of all this money spent is a system that a driver can easily beat using his own knowledge (If he so chooses), with less effort than trying to make ORION work.

 

[bham brown]

I already see a lot of the routes I run having missed businesses after we get Orion.

If you run extended then you are probably correct

 

[SCV good to go sir.]

For my fellow cover drivers, does anyone think it's now easier to learn a route in the blind with Orion?

No. I always run EDD until I'm comfortable enough on the route to start experimenting with Orion. And even then I tend to turn off Orion until I only have resi left.

EDD is pretty instinctive; it's fairly simple to look at it, a map, and then picture how it wants you to run the route.

1) Orion is not intuitive. It's hard enough doing a route blind, no need to make it counter intuitive as well.
2) Orion is a mathematical approach to solving an actual problem. While the solutions it presents may be theoretically sound, their real life application isn't going to be up to par due to all the various factors we face as drivers. A blind driver needs the tried and true method (EDD) until they gain the area knowledge.

 

[FrigidFTSup]

I already see a lot of the routes I run having missed businesses after we get Orion.

I haven't noticed any change in missed since ORION was implemented.

 

[Mugarolla]

We've had Orion going on 2 years. Management pretty much has given up on Orion. As long as you go to your first stop in Orion they don't even care about how you run the rest of your route.

Ain't it great?

A Billion dollar system to tell you what your first stop is.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Stupidvisers used to tell us to make Orion our first stop, & if we can't, they need to know why. Well, every morning after the pcm, there were 25-30 drivers circled around an unlucky on road. 1st stop is on 8k shelf, can't get to it. Response was ok, if you can't reach it...They abandoned that bs over a month ago. I have never stopped running edd & not a word has ever been said to me.

Does it make you feel better when you call them "stupidvisers"?

 

[porkwagon]

We've had Orion going on 2 years. Management pretty much has given up on Orion. As long as you go to your first stop in Orion they don't even care about how you run the rest of your route.

Same here.

 

[porkwagon]

Does it make you feel better when you call them "stupidvisers"?

LOL! When I read 32F's post I thought to myself "this is going to get under UPSTATE"s skin." Then I read your post. Pretty amusing.

 

[Wally]

Off the bat, Orion is using Clarksville numbers in terms of how many you can get off with air. Can't do it unless they want late air. If they would base Orion on my EDD trace, numbers would be much higher. There is a reason most of us know what out first stop should be but they can't see our logic.

 

[The Blackadder]

They can not fire you for following it 100%. If you follow it 100% you will make more money, just make sure you get you airs off on time.

We have one driver who has been quietly told not to follow Orion at all because he was doing it 100% and his miles were over 25 more then planned, his 9 hour days were taking close to 11.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

They can not fire you for following it 100%. If you follow it 100% you will make more money, just make sure you get you airs off on time.

We have one driver who has been quietly told not to follow Orion at all because he was doing it 100% and his miles were over 25 more then planned, his 9 hour days were taking close to 11.

It's called operational sabotage and, yeah, they can fire you for not working as directed.

 

[toonertoo]

It calculates me doing about 18 per hour. It also has me hitting my first stop at 930, when in reality, I dont get to my first one til 943.
They would love me to do 18 an hour, I would love if I could do 18 an hour. No one does 18 ph on this particular route. That is part of the overage in miles problem. And businesses at end of day, scheduled to be delivered after close. Is another, Seems to me to be an easy enough fix, but no one seems to have the power to pull that trigger. Just want to puff their chests, and squawk at me. LOL

 

[9.5er]

If me figuring out exactly how to run a route the ORION way requires that I have to vigorously study a map on their ORION computer then I just don't figure it out. And I wait until I'm on the clock to look at the computer.

Maybe that's why it is harder for me to learn a route with orion. I don't look at their silly map. Before or after I'm on the clock. I scroll through the diad and see what stops I have for the day and run them the best I can. Hell with orion.