Question

[over9five]

"480 - I agree with the others....you can be a part of the solution rather than just blaming Brown."

Why do you guys keep saying that? He says hes been complaining about this to his supervisor for a year. If his supervisor doesnt have the guts to demand some safe rollers for his workers, 480 has nowhere to go. Hes just a loader. Hes more likely to get himself fired by continuing to ask (complain) for safe equipment.

I think my supervisor would get me the safe equipment, but 480s supervisor wont and 480s at a dead end.

 

[tieguy]

"Tie Guy....You are a joke. Classic cold hearted supervisor with the ignorant"

I suppose you could say I gave you what your daddy should have a good but beating. Grow up and stop finding reasons to whine.You can always find reasons to be unhappy if you want to and you definitely want to.

 

[upslocal480]

480 - "I agree with the others....you can be a part of the solution rather than just blaming Brown.

When I was a part-timer, and we had equipment problems, we wrote them up on a Daily Equipment Condition Report until they got fixed. "We" being the hourly employees that had to use that equipment. The mechanics get a copy of it, and get the problem fixed. It helps when you write it up as a safety related problem. And lastly, write it up every day....this drives the PE guys nuts!"

Wow! Someone can actually disagree with someone yet not be an ass about it and actually give a good suggestion! "Daily Equipment Condition Report" How do I go about doing that each day? I've never heard of that. I'm glad someone has the maturity and intelligence to help a guy out instead of being a prick. With this info I guess I can finally at least try and be part of the solution now. I did feel like I was at a dead end like Over9five mentioned. People like TieGuy are part of the problem cause they don't don't anything about it and instead just spout "us men have a jobs to do" slogins and claims those as giving "butt beatings".

"I suppose you could say I gave you what your daddy should have a good but beating. Grow up and stop finding reasons to whine.You can always find reasons to be unhappy if you want to and you definitely want to."

People like you are the ones that make people whine. You just look the other way and claim all the fixable and legit problems at UPS as normal and tell people to grow up that confront that issue.

wkmac...We use the standard lightweight rollers and use jack stands from the package car shop to support the end up that goes in the trailer. The other end just sits on the edge of the belt. Not very secure though. If there is enough skids it requires two rollers that connect to each other. None of our roller connect. We have to sit on on top of the other and it usually screws up and falls. We really just need new rollers that connect and one of the HS supports. Because your help and proups we might be able to get this crap taken care of. Thanks allot. Its good to have guys like you two to help. Thats why I "whine" about these things. I will be mentioning these things Monday at work. I doubt anything will be done the first 30 times we mention it but at least we'll be doing the right thing. OH WAIT! I can't do that because then I'd just still be whining and will be told "If you don't like it then go somewhere else" and be told to grow up. LOL. Thanks for your help.

 

[tieguy]

"People like TieGuy are part of the problem cause they don't don't anything about it and instead just spout "us men have a jobs to do" slogins and claims those as giving "butt beatings"."

Yep , And its obvious you'll cry for days about your beating. In so doing you prove me right.

 

[upscorpis]

Upslocal480, I'm happy to see some positive suggestions also. I understand you can get upset when someone attacks you. I've been through a lot of those wars myself. Experience has taught me to concentrate on the problem at hand and ignore attacks. This will ultimately disarm the attacker (if they're smart) and if not, make them look foolish.

I'm also a little unclear on your setup. If you're unload skids, that means your unloading a flat. Are you saying that you normally just use one set of rollers from trailer to belt, not T-stands and rollers inside the feeder? Wkmac's suggestion about the DECR is another good idea.

I still say you should also take the business case I gave you to your supervisor. Show him/her the math. If they don't listen, show the manager or show the IE folks. We'll keep trying to help as long as you keep trying.

 

[upslocal480]

Yep , And its obvious you'll cry for days about your beating. In so doing you prove me right.

You have given no one a "beating." If you call making smart ass remarks to someone on a message board a "beating" then you must have gotten allot of real beatings in your life. LOL. Besides...if you are referring to these "beatings" as being some contest or debate then you are more ignorant than I thought. When people ask legit questions or start an equally legit topic you don't agree with then you slander them and then congradulate yourself on your self proclaimed verbal beatings once you realize that your comments, which are related to your personal careless view of how UPS should be, are not getting you anywhere and that they can easily be exposed.

(Message edited by upslocal480 on October 20, 2002)

 

[upslocal480]

skids, that means your unloading a flat. Are you saying that you normally just use one set of rollers from trailer to belt, not T-stands and rollers inside the feeder? Wkmac's suggestion about the DECR is another good idea."

If there are just a couple of skids then we can use the regular pull downs rollers that we use to unload the package cars. They are attached to the side of the belt and we have one on both sides. They are the kind that fold up. You pull them down and they go a few feet into the package car and then extend out about six more feet. We can use those to some extent when we unload the flat bed trailer. We cant unload pups on our shift. We have more than 6 skids we have to get the portable rollers out and sit one end on the edge of the belt and the other goes into the trailer and sits on a jack stand. If there are a bunch of skids than we have to use more jacks to support and extra set of rollers. It can be quite the ordeal. Its so pathetic we just laugh at it sometimes but it sucks when the whole contraption falls.

 

[upscorpis]

Now I have the picture. In that situation, we use to put the rollers on the floor of the flat. We'd have the rollers set up so that they ended just at the end of the feeder. One person would take packages from the end of the rollers and just place them on the belt. I've never seen a roller set up that would do that job well. One good thing about that set up I described is the flow of packages is very managable for the loaders on the other end. Another good thing, no tumbling rollers so it's safer. The bad thing is the number of handles. However, based on what I've heard, it wouldn't be any worse from a production perspective. Another option would be to keep the rollers on the floor and have a roller line between the feeder and the belt that isn't so tilted. I'd guess that wouldn't fall as often. Whaddaya think?

Wkmac, are there any new fangled setups out there these days that will do that job? It sounds like the H-stand type you spoke about were more oriented for unloading flats on an unload door without an extendo. In upslocal480's setup, he's unloading to a waist high belt that is perpindicular to the flow of packages out of the feeder. The vertical drop from the feeder to the belt combined with no way to secure the rollers makes it tough.

 

[upslocal480]

I dont know man. The only good thing about the way we do it now is that when it does work it is VERY VERY quick but its not always stable. Its actually too quick sometimes and with all the extra weight on the belt it starts sliding off because the package are slamming into it and pushing it to the side. It starts sputtering and slowing down. It would be safer to put it on the floor and have someone grab them and sit them on the belt but that would take forever here. Its a pretty good gap between the side of the dock and the belt. I guess if they would just get us new equipment then we'd be fine. They told us today that we will be getting all of the feeders from now on because the hub has been missing scans. I'm still not sure about why those scans are so important that they would risk the safety of their employees. All they have to do is spend the money and buy us safer equipment. I know they have the cash because we rarely even request our 3.5 guarantee here. Our center is kind of weird. Its like when they designed it they forgot that it would have a reload shift also and only designed it for preload. I'm not even sure if it was intended to be a UPS. They lease the building. Its just a rectanguler building with 3 unload doors at one end that connect to one belt down the middle sitting on a dock. They had to add on to the other end years ago when they starting getting more routes and its just an old ass tractor trailer flatbed with doors cut out along the sides with old metal rollers going down the middle of it. Those trucks sit outside and backed up to the doors. We really need a bigger center that is designed better for unloading and loading both package cars and trailers. Wishfull thinking huh?

 

[tieguy]

Waaaaaaaahhhhh.

 

[wkmac]

The H-Stands would work since the rollers would be waist high but the drawback is setup and breakdown time. Another possible solution is to modify some UNL-30 roller sections that pull out from under the conveyor you are feeding to and would extend to near the nose of a 40 ft. Flat bed.

Another solution is to modify the dock to allow the skids to be removed with a pallet jack and placed next to the conveyor for off loading. This might be the most longterm cost effective because there is no setup or breakdown time, no potential equipment failures and places the work right at the conveyor.

upslocal480, without seeing your site it's hard to tell what the perfect solution is but if you drop me a private message via browncafe private message format maybe you can have your supervisor send me a digital photo via e-mail and I can look in the Equipment Standards Manual to see what might work the best. If your supervisor is not responsive, ask him or her if they would be interested in raising their PPH? We might can do that and make it much safer to boot killing 2 birds with one stone.

I don't like hearing of you using jack stands from the auto shop because this makes a real unstable setup. Get tote boxes, turn them upside down and stack them to the height you need and place the rollers on them instead. The wider area makes the roller sections more stable.

As for the DECR (Daily Equipment Condition Report) I don't mind if you write something up multiple times because that is what you're suppose to do. What I don't like is when you continue to write something up after it has been fixed. This tells me your doing a paper job, you're really not checking your area and if you don't notice it was fixed makes me wonder if there was really a need in the first place. The DECR is a very important tool especially the Pre and Post trip inspection and I can't stress enough the importance of this and acting on a timely basis to it. Also it's important to use the equipment properly. Use the UPS methods because the equipment was designed around these parameters and when you step outside those methods you increase the risk of not only equipment damage but damage to packages and potential safety risk to employees. JMO.

mac

 

[upslocal480]

Wkmac...I'll see if I can get a digital of our center. I can tell you right now a pallet jack is impossible in this situation. The trailer sits up higher than the dock does. Are those "DECRs" the same things the drivers bring in some days? The yellow forms?

 

[wkmac]

upslocal480,
Yes, the DECR is very much like the daily report the drivers fill out on the cars. It also has guidelines on what to look or along with a Pre and Post trip agenda to follow.

You might be in one of those situations where you're limited in solutions but upscorpis may have given you the best solution but I would add one thing to look at with his solution. Instead of having a person at the end of the trailer pulling off packages for belt placement, if the fall from trailer to belt is not to great look at having a portable slide made and place it at the end of the trailer so the packages don't require anyone to handle them after the unloader has placed them on the rollers.

Another thing I want to add for you to think about. You posed a good question concerning the issue of unloading skids with some concerns raised about your local management team's reaction to these issues. The conditions at UPS can change almost on a daily basis with you going to work tonight and instead of 4 to 6 skids you might have 5 trailer loads to deal with and the local Hub in your area is blown out so you have to process them. These things happen and will continue to happen and your management team only knows one thing, they have to get the trailers unloaded with what they've got on hand.

Sometimes what you percieve as a manager who doesn't care is a manager who has been told by someone way up the foodchain who couldn't find your center with a map and GPS device muchless know the situation there to operate at a certain level or else. When a Sort manager has no flexibility, all the tea in China will make no difference. I've seen several situations like this and have had ideas that were going nowhere. I stepped outside the box, figured out a way that my idea would be cost effective and make whoever look like a hero and "BAM" idea becomes reality. No it doesn't work everytime but more often than not. Does some else get the credit? Yeah, in many cases but I got what I wanted so what's the big deal anyway.

You saw the openness and responsiveness of upscorpis who is in management and I see that positive attitude way more than the negative at UPS so be willing to learn what your supervisors are dealing with. You may find they are not the bad guy but just have their hands tied too and if you work together maybe you both can benefit longterm. Step back and think outside the box, earn their trust and you might be surprised.

 

[upslocal480]

That trusting supervisors thing is true but unfortunately I've been lied to in the past by supervisors. I know that I'm not the only one thats happened to. I have put myself in their shoes many of times and thats why I tore up my letter 3 years ago that I had written requesting part-time supervisor consideration. The part-time sups are the scape goats. We all trust our part-time supervisor on our shift and he won't lie to us. He might withhold imformation until asked but he won't lie. Actually trusting our sups or them trusting us isnt the problem. I actuaally don't care if they lie about their reasons for doing things. All I and the rest of us on the shift want is better rollers with better supports and for them to realize that the way we are doing that job now causes us to have to stop the belt repeatively and that they shouldnt bitch about that. More importantly we want it safer. That is easy to fix and getting new rollers with better supports is the solution. A guy was in our center last night looking over the whole building. I think he was some type of enginier. He now knows about our other rollers that are for the package cars. They are very screwed up. I asked my p/t supervisor if he was who we needed to talk to about our other problem and he laughed and said no. I asked who might be the correct person and he laughed again and, with sarcasm, said, "I don't think there is such a guy". We all laughed cause we realized that it seems true. I asked our full-time supervisor recently why we even unload those trailers here and he said we need the scans. The other night he told us that we will be getting them for now on because the hub was missing too many of the scans when they unloaded it there. He recently had our feeder driver aquire a 53 ft. trailer for nights when there are more than 12 skids. It will be funny trying to set up the rollers for that job. We did that once a year ago and it was disasterous. We didn't get mad or complain. Our part-time sup just took pictures of the mess and showed them to his higher ups. One time he even called feeders and had the trailers sent to the hub. Boy was he in trouble with the full-time sups the next day. So yeah I've stepped out of the box to look at problems many times and that is why I am carefull of how I confront our sups about anything but I think if we had better equipment then all the lies and deception that sometimes happens would be ingnored. As long as we can do the job safely and get paid then we'll be happy. We save them so much money by not requesting our 3.5 garuantees and minus the roller problem have NEVER complained about anything. They should at least hook us up with some new rollers.

 

[upscorpis]

Has anyone out there ever seen a good setup for unloading a feeder onto a belt that was meant for loading? That's what it seems we're talking about here. This is a straight line runout belt that's designed mostly for loading package cars. I've never seen anything work as well as a person taking packages out of the feeder and placing them on the belt for multiple reasons.

Upslocal480, you've stated many problems about how it's done now but said when it works, it's fast. However, when it's fast, it overweights the belt or blows out the pickoff/load positions. Can you please tell me why this method is still used? Wkmac's idea of a fabbed up slide might work between the feeder and belt but that doesn't prevent the belt from overloading.

The scanning thing is understandable to a degree. Your center's origin scan frequency must be taking a beating due to the hub's seeming inability to scan everything. Is it possible to set up the shipper with a portable scanner? I know a lot of shippers will do this. The scans could then be uploaded at the center. It would be possible to even cost justify an incentive for the shipper to do this.

I wonder how much of an attempt was made to correct the situation at the hub. Was it a knee jerk reaction to bring the feeder to the center or was it a last resort thing? Did the local management team work up the management chain to get this resolved the right way, by having the hub held accountable? These are somewhat rhetorical questions but you may be able to find out. Chances are good that your sort handling the packages is costing UPS money since the hub more than likely splits the packages more finely when they handle them. That seems to be a forgotten element by your management team.

 

[upslocal480]

"Has anyone out there ever seen a good setup for unloading a feeder onto a belt that was meant for loading? That's what it seems we're talking about here. This is a straight line runout belt that's designed mostly for loading package cars. I've never seen anything work as well as a person taking packages out of the feeder and placing them on the belt for multiple reasons."

Yeah thats what we have here. It's like they only designed the place for preload and forgot about reload.

"Upslocal480, you've stated many problems about how it's done now but said when it works, it's fast. However, when it's fast, it overweights the belt or blows out the pickoff/load positions. Can you please tell me why this method is still used? Wkmac's idea of a fabbed up slide might work between the feeder and belt but that doesn't prevent the belt from overloading."

Well, I guess we still use that method because it's the fastest. We don't have anything else to use to change it so I guess we're stuck with doing it that way.

"The scanning thing is understandable to a degree. Your center's origin scan frequency must be taking a beating due to the hub's seeming inability to scan everything. Is it possible to set up the shipper with a portable scanner? I know a lot of shippers will do this. The scans could then be uploaded at the center. It would be possible to even cost justify an incentive for the shipper to do this."

Well, I didn't know about that and have no idea if our managment knows about it but when you mentioned that they could cost justify it then I knew right away that we will never do that here. It's well known that spending money to make changes whether they are for the better or not is a no no here. They'd spend money only if it's obsolutely a necessity.

"I wonder how much of an attempt was made to correct the situation at the hub. Was it a knee jerk reaction to bring the feeder to the center or was it a last resort thing? Did the local management team work up the management chain to get this resolved the right way, by having the hub held accountable? These are somewhat rhetorical questions but you may be able to find out. Chances are good that your sort handling the packages is costing UPS money since the hub more than likely splits the packages more finely when they handle them. That seems to be a forgotten element by your management team."

I don't know what they did at the hub. Our sup just said that we were going to have to get the feeders for now on because scans were being missed. Seemed upset about it. Unloading the feeder here used to be just a random thing but he was talking like it'll be permanent for a while. From what I remember about working at that hub is that they probably just bitched some people out for a while about missing the scans and then just said "oh well" and moved on. Our center has to spend more money to pay the feeder driver to come in several hours early to pick up the feeder and bring it to our center. No extra money is actually spent to hanlde the packages here though. They just get more scans than normal but in the same hours as we normally work. If we do actually run over the normal time we work then we just don't wash as many package cars as we normally do. One of the first things I noticed after transfering was that they seemed to tolerate missed scans, misloads, et. more than at smaller buildings. As if saying that they expect it to happen at the hubs with such a high amount of work comming through there. I remember how hard it was to always be perfect every week when sorting there. Here its different. We have maybe one misload a week and rarely miss a scan and when we do go over that trend then managment will say something to us. Its just so much simplier here. /font>

 

[wkmac]

"Upslocal480, you've stated many problems about how it's done now but said when it works, it's fast. However, when it's fast, it overweights the belt or blows out the pickoff/load positions. Can you please tell me why this method is still used? Wkmac's idea of a fabbed up slide might work between the feeder and belt but that doesn't prevent the belt from overloading."

Is the conveyor a variable speed? What I mean is the Preload needs a slow running conveyor for loading but you need a faster running system to prevent backflow during unload. Go to your conveyor drive and look and see if there is a little crank wheel. If you do it should have an arrow indicator pointing to direction of speed up and slow down. If you don't have this then it may be time for a VFD (Variable Frequency Drive). A variable speed reducer can cost several thousand dollars plus labor to install whereas a VFD only cost around $500 plus labor and you can program the unit with up to 7 preset speeds plus reverse. My supervisor several years ago was fretting over the cost of a variable speed reducer in a center just like yours when I told him to consider a VFD and the whole thing including install would be under $1000. I met him there the next morning, looked over the setup and it was perfect for a VFD. It was installed and the center has loved it ever sense. Increasing belt speed may eliminate your backflow problem. Ask the PE folks about you current drive being variable speed and showing you how it works or if not ask about getting a VFD installed. This may be a possible solution to your situation.

 

[upslocal480]

We have one of those cranks and we crank it up almost full blast at the beginning of our shift. It has to be a on high especially when we unload the feeder. All those boxes pile up and weigh down the belt and cause it to slip off as they re slamming into the belt. Even on full speed.

 

[tieguy]

Another obstacle to happiness I see.

 

[upslocal480]

"Another obstacle to happiness I see."

Once again....yet another smartass and unwaranted comment. What is this guy's problem?!?!?!