ORION, Who has it and tell us what you think...

[giggity]

I've had orion for about a month and it has been a disaster. my edd was perfect! I spent 2 hours of my own time in the pas office setting up my route's rdo and it was set up virtually stop for stop. now orion comes along and supposedly 'optimizes' my route on a daily basis but it doesn't take the pre-set load into account at all. I work from 1000 to 6000 to 8000 and so on. it has me trying to deliver way too many stops before 10:30 and when I cant get them all I have to back track or be out of trace.
but the obvious problems are that it doesn't know the difference between left and right, odd and even, high and low or resi and biz. it has me making left hand turns crossing a 4-lane divided highway over a dozen times during the day, with subsequent u-turns to get back where I was. what pisses me off the most is that i'll be heading back down that side of the highway later and can make each of those stops from the right .. just how we're taught.
I can either be 90% with late air, missed business, and more miles or 70% with less miles and made all service .. but I get bitched at either way. and not one single mgr will tell me which is more important!
I use orion to a point but when I hit the more country part of the route I deliver the way I want to and HAVE to in order get off the remaining biz.
it's a tool but my common sense and edd are better.

 

[soberups]

Well, its been about 5 weeks since the ORION implementation team finished with our center.

As I predicted, my route was the last one on the center to be implemented. And also as I predicted, they were right up against the deadline and scheduled to move on to another center and so the implementation for my route wound up being a half-assed rush job.

I have no problem with that, since I never had any intention of following ORION in the first place. All I do in the morning is to download EDD, shut ORION off, and go do my job the same way I have always done. Today for example, ORION calculated that I would run 152 miles; by shutting it off and making decisions based upon area knowledge I ran 124. Thats a savings of 28 miles. I have never once followed ORION, and I save an average of 10 to 15 miles per day by ignoring it. The least I have ever saved by ignoring it is 9 miles.

The bottom line is that all of the time and effort and money that was spent installing ORION on my route was completely wasted. The only redeeming feature that I can see is in having the ability to look at a map overview of my route in the mornings, with an accurate stop count. Other than that, the system is absolutely useless and if I even tried to follow the trace it creates I would wind up wasting miles and adding at least an hour to my paid day as well as being out of compliance on most of my pickups. So far, I havent heard a single word from my management team about my failure to follow ORION and my hope is that it stays that way. I dont need the grief and neither do they.

 

[mixyo]

Everyone at my facility, drivers and preloaders, absolutely hate it. Management of course loves it. Thankfully due to the nature of the trucks/routes I load, I shouldn't ever have to deal with that (knock on wood).

 

[Wally]

I have the feeling, over time, management will have drivers ignore ORION, in an effort to save sagging production numbers.

 

[728ups]

​From everything I have read I simply cannot wait until ORION is implemented in our center. It will make me a great deal of money,and I plan on being 100% in trace every single day. I 'beat' EDD when it came out by using smarts and area knowledge but I plan on embracing this system and fiddling as Rome burns. Who an I to argue with someone with an engineering degree?

 

[MethodsMan]

Sounds like they're trying to turn delivering packages into a game of frogger.



Pure genius these desk jockeys are.

 

[MethodsMan]

Trying to deliver on both sides of busy roads because ORION tells us to. Safe, very safe.

 

[rushfan]

Another reason why I chose to work in Feeders!

 

[Indecisi0n]

I need some extra cash for an upcoming vacation so I will be following Orion.

 

[jumpman23]

Si I got in last night and the center manager was in the office hanging out with some of us guys. Hes actually a cool dude lol. He said they are starting in oct to start setting up the computers or whatever for orion. He said their starting the actual process after the holidays in jan and said it would take about 6 months to complete. He said he heard that it is really cutting back miles. I just started laughing. I was trying to tell them how the system screws up everything, obviously from gathering info from you guys that have it and have posted on here about it. He hasn't got a freakin clue as to how bad this system is going to be. Its going to be funny when he finds out how bad it sux lol. Hes going to learn the hard way with businesses and pickups being missed. Hes in for a rude awakening. Hes going to get rocked to sleep with all the over allowed. Should be a funny comedy show for real.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

Si I got in last night and the center manager was in the office hanging out with some of us guys. Hes actually a cool dude lol. He said they are starting in oct to start setting up the computers or whatever for orion. He said their starting the actual process after the holidays in jan and said it would take about 6 months to complete. He said he heard that it is really cutting back miles. I just started laughing. I was trying to tell them how the system screws up everything, obviously from gathering info from you guys that have it and have posted on here about it. He hasn't got a freakin clue as to how bad this system is going to be. Its going to be funny when he finds out how bad it sux lol. Hes going to learn the hard way with businesses and pickups being missed. Hes in for a rude awakening. Hes going to get rocked to sleep with all the over allowed. Should be a funny comedy show for real.

I heard my center isn't getting ORION. Oh boohoo.

 

[jumpman23]

I thought that too but lookey lookey lookey whats coming lol.

 

[barnyard]

Our Orion start date keeps getting pushed out farther. Fine with me.

 

[browniehound]

My opinion is I like it. I've only been on it for a week, but each day I've had more stops done by lunch than any other day in 4 years on the route. I have been a little below average in volume the past week but still I had never had as good a day in 4 years as I had the last 5 days on Orion. Management must be working with the preload because my load quality has been almost perfect.

The Orion sup. who rode me said what they give you for work is what it is whether its an 8.5 plan or a 10.5 plan you're stuck with it for the day. The days of getting help or driving extra miles to help someone because you're light are over. Its all about the miles and not production as far as the Orion guys are concerned.
I'm assuming if you're really slammed (like 12-13 hours) they'll send help but for the most part no.

I think its the first thing UPS has done that actually benefits the driver. I haven't punched out past 545 since I've been on Orion. The OMS don't know what to do with themselves now because they are not allowed to make those brilliant decisions like sending you 10 miles out of your way to take 10 stops from someone. It still took them a while to get it through their thick, close-minded skulls that they can't do that. Many were reprimanded by the Orion boss many times before they stopped.

That's my humble opinion at least..

 

[Dracula]

My opinion is I like it. I've only been on it for a week, but each day I've had more stops done by lunch than any other day in 4 years on the route. I have been a little below average in volume the past week but still I had never had as good a day in 4 years as I had the last 5 days on Orion. Management must be working with the preload because my load quality has been almost perfect.

The Orion sup. who rode me said what they give you for work is what it is whether its an 8.5 plan or a 10.5 plan you're stuck with it for the day. The days of getting help or driving extra miles to help someone because you're light are over. Its all about the miles and not production as far as the Orion guys are concerned.
I'm assuming if you're really slammed (like 12-13 hours) they'll send help but for the most part no.

I think its the first thing UPS has done that actually benefits the driver. I haven't punched out past 545 since I've been on Orion. The OMS don't know what to do with themselves now because they are not allowed to make those brilliant decisions like sending you 10 miles out of your way to take 10 stops from someone. It still took them a while to get it through their thick, close-minded skulls that they can't do that. Many were reprimanded by the Orion boss many times before they stopped.

That's my humble opinion at least..

Hmmm. That Orion sup makes up his own rules when he wants to? If you have an 8HR day and you're over dispatched, you're stuck, huh? Maybe you should have asked some more pointed questions to this clown. Like, do you operate under a different contract than we do? Do you know what a contract is?

Here's how it will work: everyone will play the Orion game until the Orion guys head back to their cave. Then, the creative dispatch will show back up on your truck.

 

[soberups]

I turn ORION off first thing every morning, and I finally got talked to last Thursday because I had the worst ORION compliance (59%) for the entire center on the previous day.

I pointed out that I also had the second BEST actual vs. planned mileage for the entire center on that day, coming in 32 miles UNDER what ORION projected for the route, and that on a daily basis I beat it by at least 20 miles. I then politely offered to start following it 100%, and my sup politely said no and he thanked me for making good business decisions and asked me to continue doing so in the future.

For my route at least, ORION is a farce. Its a sick joke, and anyone who even tried to follow it would have late air, missed businesses, pickups 2 hours early or late, etc etc.

What happened was that my route was the last one on the center to have ORION installed. The implementation team was up against a deadline and scheduled to start at a different center the following week, so they just threw mine together half-assed at the last minute in order to get it done and move on. I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to get "fixed", either. Quite frankly I could care less if they ever fix it, I have 18+ years of area knowledge on my route and less than 4 yrs left until retirement eligibility, so I have no need for silly and useless technology in the first place.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

Reading these Orion threads is one of the main reasons I'm selling my UPS stock. LOL!

 

[jumpman23]

I just dont see how it can work unless you have the same stuff on your route everyday. My routes different every single day. 1 day ill have all my stuff n the next day is entirely the route they bust out that day. They will keep playing that day. I think their putting orion in to bust out more routes n vive ya 10 to 40 more stops every day.

 

[soberups]

I just dont see how it can work unless you have the same stuff on your route everyday.

It works great if you are a fatass paper-wrangler who sits in a cubicle looking at Google Earth maps all day. To someone who has never run a route, delivered a package or managed a UPS operational center in their life, the logic and perfection of ORION are inarguable. It only starts to unravel once you actually try to make it work in the REAL world, by which time you have moved on and it has become someone ELSES problem. Its really easy to implement grandiose operational concepts that you yourself will never be held accountable for on a daily basis.

 

[browniehound]

Hmmm. That Orion sup makes up his own rules when he wants to? If you have an 8HR day and you're over dispatched, you're stuck, huh? Maybe you should have asked some more pointed questions to this clown. Like, do you operate under a different contract than we do? Do you know what a contract is?

Here's how it will work: everyone will play the Orion game until the Orion guys head back to their cave. Then, the creative dispatch will show back up on your truck.

No, of course the Orion guy doesn't make up his own rules, silly. It comes from corporate and it overrides the Center Management team. The company is going in a different direction now. And that direction is saving miles.

I don't know how it works where you are but if we have an 8 hour request the work is moved before dispatch. And its just a request so its not a guaruntee . If you request it and it doesn't happen you get to request it again (doesn't count toward the 2 per month allowed by contract)