How should company fix peak problems?

[brown67]

UPS is failing its customers at Christmas, and has been for awhile. They want more and more done with less and less. A few years ago my old package route would peak with 200 stops and now its 300 to 330 stops. Most days I could get done by 1900 and might have a couple of days getting in at 2100. Now its out past 1900 everyday and work til 2200 and miss anything that you can't deliver. I moved to feeders two years ago, because the demands on package drivers is to unrealistic. The driver who bid my route is getting crushed and discouraged. I can't blame him, because it was getting bad when I moved to feeders and it just keeps getting worse.

How would you fix it?

 

[HEFFERNAN]

You can't be lean and mean for 11 months and then all of a sudden double seasonal employees for quadruple the packages.

Now there is an article on nbcnews.com about how UPS failed and makes us all look bad.
Major changes from the top are needed.

 

[kingOFchester]

UPS is failing its customers at Christmas, and has been for awhile. They want more and more done with less and less. A few years ago my old package route would peak with 200 stops and now its 300 to 330 stops. Most days I could get done by 1900 and might have a couple of days getting in at 2100. Now its out past 1900 everyday and work til 2200 and miss anything that you can't deliver. I moved to feeders two years ago, because the demands on package drivers is to unrealistic. The driver who bid my route is getting crushed and discouraged. I can't blame him, because it was getting bad when I moved to feeders and it just keeps getting worse.

How would you fix it?

Walk through the offices, take 50% of the people sitting at their laptops clicking on this and that, copying and pasting over and over again, and lay them off. It amazes me how many people are in these offices sitting on laptops copying and pasting this to that report. Print this and print that.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Any proposals to fix these issues are hindered by our limited capacity. The building I work out of is less than 10 years old and we have already outgrown it. Short of parking rentals outside and extending rollers to load them there is little more that can be done.

 

[kingOFchester]

Any proposals to fix these issues are hindered by our limited capacity. The building I work out of is less than 10 years old and we have already outgrown it. Short of parking rentals outside and extending rollers to load them there is little more that can be done.

hahah. So thats it? Nothing can be done?

 

[brown67]

This looks really bad, but we got an extra 5 stops an hour out of the driver. Time to give ie the boot and put some service back into the company. Numbers are going to kill the company.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Every driver in my center had a helper. Mgt that was not running a route was shuttling misloads. Meet points were set up to make sure the pickups made it back to the center on time. Every inch of available space and every available resource was used. In my center there was little more that could have been done.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

hahah. So thats it? Nothing can be done?

It's xmas, no need to jab him!!

UPSTATE makes a good point about many buildings unable to handle more routes and packages than we did this peak

 

[brown67]

My building was built in 2001 and had a pod on it a couple years later. Still does. Everyday there are 8 trucks out on the pod. center manager said they have the room to expand, but won't do it.

 

[some1else]

Every driver in my center had a helper. Mgt that was not running a route was shuttling misloads. Meet points were set up to make sure the pickups made it back to the center on time. Every inch of available space and every available resource was used. In my center there was little more that could have been done.

Easy fix for peak.
Take 10-15 resi routes have preload throw in a pup, pull pup in a parking lot (if its cold you can rent a wharehouse) and unload onto a rollers with trucks backed up to it on both sides. We do it every year. Not ideal but works fine for peak.

Im sure there where plenty of PT employees in the building that would jump at the chance to shuttle packages for top ground rate.

Instead of overdispatching and cutting routes all june-oct reg temps could be put on road and given time to do the job to learn and be able to accomplish something when peak comes around.

Im no manager but those are a couple ideas that could help.

 

[cachsux]

It's xmas, no need to jab him!!

UPSTATE makes a good point about many buildings unable to handle more routes and packages than we did this peak

My building is the largest ground service building we have and we were out of bays some days and that's on top of the two lots we rented for overflow.
We ran past peak number days before tgiving. Some days we ran over 1 million pkgs per sort. There's days in the year we don't run that in an entire day. I wouldn't be surprised if we were over previous year peak numbers by a million.
If we are getting it like that at the top it's only going to roll downhill and flood every building downstream of us.

The other problem I heard here was few ptimers wanted to move up into seasonal package. Few off the street would either.

 

[Future]

I remember one peak(dont know what year, i am old) we where so backed up we had every UPS employee delivering pkgs! Didnt matter who you where sales people, office people,the guy that cleans the urinals out in there personal vehicles delivering what we sell..... This did not happened this year when it should have!We failed as a company this peak and the blame should be on the top dogs!Alot of kids will be disappointed this Christmas morn as well as old people who might have been waiting for that one present from a far away relative!

 

[Catatonic]

I remember one peak(dont know what year, i am old) we where so backed up we had every UPS employee delivering pkgs! Didnt matter who you where sales people, office people,the guy that cleans the urinals out in there personal vehicles delivering what we sell..... This did not happened this year when it should have!We failed as a company this peak and the blame should be on the top dogs!
A lot of kids will be disappointed this Christmas morn as well as old people who might have been waiting for that one present from a far away relative!

Well, I guess GOD is a top dog. I'll let you take that up with him/her.

Amazon is another top dog, Jeff Bezos is awaiting your input.

A lack of planning on the customers' part, does not constitute an emergency on UPS's part.

 

[Notretiredyet]

Atlanta was well aware of the possibility of this happening, in the old days prior to going public this would have never been acceptable. Now it's just a PR blip on the news for a few days, forgotten by most by New Years. Nothing matters but the bottom line now and until these failures hurt revenues nothing will be done. One thing we could do in the future is work with some of the larger shippers on the timing of shipments during peak. Do I really need to be delivering 30 boxes of Valentine Days cards during peak? Inventory needed after Xmas should be held by shippers until peak is over.

 

[Future]

Well, I guess GOD is a top dog. I'll let you take that up with him/her.

Amazon is another top dog, Jeff Bezos is awaiting your input.

A lack of planning on the customers' part, does not constitute an emergency on UPS's part.

You have no integrity!

 

[Catatonic]

You have no integrity!

And you have no future!

A future as a business person.
My advice to you ... keep working for someone else who understands business!

 

[Future]

Atlanta was well aware of the possibility of this happening, in the old days prior to going public this would have never been acceptable. Now it's just a PR blip on the news for a few days, forgotten by most by New Years. Nothing matters but the bottom line now and until these failures hurt revenues nothing will be done. One thing we could do in the future is work with some of the larger shippers on the timing of shipments during peak. Do I really need to be delivering 30 boxes of Valentine Days cards during peak? Inventory needed after Xmas should be held by shippers until peak is over.

LOL on the 30 boxes of Valentines Day cards.......got that Monday at a major Grocery store ...thought the same thing

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Do I really need to be delivering 30 boxes of Valentine Days cards during peak?

The receiving clerk at Walmart and I asked each other the very same question the other day.

 

[Future]

And you have no future!

A future as a business person.
My advice to you ... keep working for someone else who understands business!

Business??? The business we are in is delivering boxes to people....on time.....in a professional manner....the higher ups knew of the circumstance the company was in (with mass excess of volume) and did NOTHING ABOUT IT!!!! That is failure as a company and you are a part of it!

 

[Alexcross774]

Atlanta was well aware of the possibility of this happening, in the old days prior to going public this would have never been acceptable. Now it's just a PR blip on the news for a few days, forgotten by most by New Years. Nothing matters but the bottom line now and until these failures hurt revenues nothing will be done. One thing we could do in the future is work with some of the larger shippers on the timing of shipments during peak. Do I really need to be delivering 30 boxes of Valentine Days cards during peak? Inventory needed after Xmas should be held by shippers until peak is over.

While this whole Peak was over plan, obviously the surge in Air yesterday was crazy. At my building we had 365 cars counting rentals. Not one car out of service until Monday. They all were used every day, and we couldn't process the volume. At some point you reach max capacity, and more cars and routes won't fix it. You just do what you can and work through the backlog. I don't like seeing the news stories either, and I had presents I shipped that didn't make it as well. But at 2130 last night we had 200 drivers still out, and when I see them coming back at 2300, I know everyone did all they could. This cluster was caused at the Corporate level IMO. Everyone from managers on down just got it handed to them, we did what we could and we did it well. So here is to everyone that has busted their ass this peak. Merry Christmas! Tomorrow is another day...