Is IE Department incompetent or just plain lazy?

[SlowRide80k]

We constantly have a business delivery where one driver delivers at 4pm...another pickups at 4pm while a 3rd driver is across the street doing the residential at 4pm. Sometimes the pickup guy beats the delivery guy there and the company gets their daily pu before they get their delivery.

 

[menotyou]

Now I see why our dispatcher is 5th in the division. They are hopeless, all of them.

 

[scratch]

We constantly have a business delivery where one driver delivers at 4pm...another pickups at 4pm while a 3rd driver is across the street doing the residential at 4pm. Sometimes the pickup guy beats the delivery guy there and the company gets their daily pu before they get their delivery.

I see this everyday on my route. I make a pickup on the other side of town from my delivery area on the way back to the building. The delivery driver on that area sometimes delivers this office supply store as or after I pick it up. And another driver is across the street delivering apartments at the same time. Nothing like paying three drivers occupying the same area, I have gave up trying to get this stupidity fixed.

 

[brownmonster]

Notice the amount of responses on this thread by mgmnt people. None. How can this company brag about this technology in the media. The problem is when they fix something another error pops up somewhere else. It works in the 50 car plan but not the 49 or 51. I gave up. Miles are money.

 

[upsgrunt]

We just got a new dispatch supe. Yesterday I got a 1 package, 1 stop, residential, driver release add cut from another driver to this town that otherwise I wouldn't have had to drive to; just because I was 1 stop under my min. Still had an over 9.5 dispatch. I questioned it when I got in, but certainly don't expect anything to change. I was told the move was made to make the dispatch screen look "pretty"- that must mean NO yellow.
The money UPS could make.............

 

[soberups]

If you have a looping or dispatch issue talk to your center team who should let your center PDS know. It is easy to fix a small issue like that and will improve the PDS's numbers so they won't get crapped on as much from above so they should be happy to make the fix as long as there isn't a different big picture issue that is forcing the weird dispatch.

I will say that if you have a new PDS, the training curve is about 5-6 months before they master all the concepts they have to know, and then to get everything done in the 5.5 hour window for a PT sup is hectic.

It might be easy to fix one small issue like that....the problem is that there are about ten thousand small issues like that.

And while there might indeed be a 5-6 month training curve.... all of the training in the world will not enable a PDS to force 10 gallons of s$%t into the 5-gallon bucket that IE has provided him with. The best plan in the world will fail 100% of the time when we are denied the ability to put enough routes on the street.

Working at UPS has pretty much become an excercise in sticking Band-aids over a thousand self-inflicted cuts. It is truly unfortunate that our front-line management people are not allowed to simply do the right thing.

 

[pretzel_man]

Notice the amount of responses on this thread by mgmnt people. None. How can this company brag about this technology in the media. The problem is when they fix something another error pops up somewhere else. It works in the 50 car plan but not the 49 or 51. I gave up. Miles are money.

Look at the title of the thread.....

What if I asked you if you have stopped stealing yet?

IE does not create the trace or do the dispatch.

That's done by the local PDS in the center. If loop boundaries need to change, then yes, that's IE.

Add / cuts are done the preload. Have I seen metrics drive bad decisions?? Yes. Other metrics balance that. (Mileage index for instance)

With the technology today, the PDS should be able to fix these problems quickly. Some do a great job. Some not.

To find out why problems exist in your dispatch, a better answer will be gotten by asking the PDS, instead of the BC. Of course, unless the real goal was just to complain.

 

[bottomups]

My goal in the original post was NOT to complain! Was looking for input as to how other centers may rectify this issue. I have brought up this issue with my on car, center manager and PDS in that order. Was told that because allowances were different in these two loops IE would have to OK any movements from one unit to another. As originally stated, I am done trying to fix their problem. Miles are money and I'll take that to the bank!

 

[pretzel_man]

My goal in the original post was NOT to complain! Was looking for input as to how other centers may rectify this issue. I have brought up this issue with my on car, center manager and PDS in that order. Was told that because allowances were different in these two loops IE would have to OK any movements from one unit to another. As originally stated, I am done trying to fix their problem. Miles are money and I'll take that to the bank!

Yes... Movement between loops requires IE. Movement between routes in the same loop does not.

The majority of problems can be fixed by working on the trace in a single loop. Not always, but usually.

Are these really moves betweek two loops?

 

[bottomups]

It does involve two separate loops and that is why it has been such a hassle to try and change it! The ball is now in their court. They can decide what to do with it.

 

[Anonymous 10]

My vote goes for incompetence.

 

[pretzel_man]

It does involve two separate loops and that is why it has been such a hassle to try and change it! The ball is now in their court. They can decide what to do with it.

While its not the preferred methods, the PDS can dispatch the territory to the appropriate driver. It takes a little longer, but easy to do.

They just go into the Dispatch Territory List, and assign it to the right person. Then they need to go into the route and put it in the proper order.

An extra step, but easy to do.

 

[What'dyabringmetoday???]

Incompetent.

 

[soberups]

To find out why problems exist in your dispatch, a better answer will be gotten by asking the PDS, instead of the BC. Of course, unless the real goal was just to complain.

When I show up in the morning and 10 other drivers are already waiting in line to talk to the PDS, the reason for the problems becomes obvious.

Our PDS is sharp. But he cant perform miracles, he cant force 60 routes worth of volume into the 52 cars that IE says he can have, and he cant single-handedly correct the thousands of ongoing issues we have with loop detail.

 

[pretzel_man]

When I show up in the morning and 10 other drivers are already waiting in line to talk to the PDS, the reason for the problems becomes obvious.

Our PDS is sharp. But he cant perform miracles, he cant force 60 routes worth of volume into the 52 cars that IE says he can have, and he cant single-handedly correct the thousands of ongoing issues we have with loop detail.

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't sound right. Your PDS may be sharp, but if so, fixing root cause problems would be done.

You eat an elephant a bite at a time. Once loops and trace are right, maintenance is very low and dispatching is much easier. I've done it.

Its rarely the cause of IE. That's just a convenient excuse.

 

[anotherupser]

My goal in the original post was NOT to complain! Was looking for input as to how other centers may rectify this issue. I have brought up this issue with my on car, center manager and PDS in that order. Was told that because allowances were different in these two loops IE would have to OK any movements from one unit to another. As originally stated, I am done trying to fix their problem. Miles are money and I'll take that to the bank!

Are you a baseline car? If not, you should not be getting work from other loops if the PDS is following proper methods.

 

[TheKid]

Can I split my vote 50/50 ?

 

[tourists24]

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't sound right. Your PDS may be sharp, but if so, fixing root cause problems would be done.

You eat an elephant a bite at a time. Once loops and trace are right, maintenance is very low and dispatching is much easier. I've done it.

Its rarely the cause of IE. That's just a convenient excuse.

Convenient excuse? really? Trying to fit 60 routes worth of stuff in 52 loops because IE tells the center manager this is how many routes he is allowed to have? sounds like a convenient excuse to not blame the system

 

[pretzel_man]

Convenient excuse? really? Trying to fit 60 routes worth of stuff in 52 loops because IE tells the center manager this is how many routes he is allowed to have? sounds like a convenient excuse to not blame the system

How do you know that it is 60 routes worth of work???

As nice as it is to believe, the IE department doesn't tell the package division manager how many routes he / she needs to have.

Based on a forecast of volume and stops, the number of cars are supposed to grow and shrink to fit that volume level. If there are 52 cars (and the district is following the right process), then the volume / stop level supports 52 cars.

Now, if the dispatch is poor, then even though the volume / stop level supports 52 cars, it can't be properly accomplished with that number of cars.

So, there is no way to know the correct number of cars without knowing the volume / stop level and how good the dispatch is.....

In this thread, people complained about poor / inefficient dispatch. That is the job of the local operator to correct. That poor dispatch creates extra on-road time. This was also acknowledged in this thread.

As I have said before, a good dispatch can help increase SPC and also reduce paid day (for the center).

I am not denying that a problem exists. I am pointing out that the cause is misjudged.

 

[menotyou]

I see the center manager come running downstairs after a conference call, run over to the "blue cart computer" and look at the truck colors. Then, he makes some add/cuts, and looks at the truck colors, again. Not the dispatcher, he is hiding in his office. I have yet to see them care about anything other than that. Is the color red? His head is sweating, if it is. Drivers that have 29+ years in can't understand why they do what they do. I have seen add/cut sheets with one stop on them. The paper wasted in my building on add/cuts in one year would reach the moon. We have IE come in now and then, and they say we should not have anywhere near that many add/cuts. Yet, there he(the dispatcher)sits in his chair, day after day. Hiding in his office, told to stay there because of too many harassment complaints from the employees.
This has nothing to do with the IE people.