Signs of............. PEAK!!!!

[badpal]

Yep. The Tuesday tweaking was my suggestion that they did not enter correctly. So, the Monday errors were still there, plus the mistweak on Tuesday.

It was frustrating because when they announced the roll out date, I came here and did a search (who woulda thought, a user, using the search function) and read up to find out what to do to make it easier/more successful.

I typed out my 1st four sections, stop for stop, including all ranges. Got the 1st list and tried to correct their input errors. They did, kind of, then rearranged some stuff.

Thursday morning, I had an early AM and when I dropped my lunchbox, I noticed something amiss. After a really loud, " W T friend," part of it was corrected, they sent me out with the rest. It would have added an hour to my day, plus I would not have been able to deliver my NDA's and my regular route would have started an hour+ late. ANnnnnnnd, I would have had to get gas during the day, because they added 20-30 miles, mostly do to back tracking.

2 customers stopped me when I was at other stops asking for their stuff. It was cut from my route and added to another. So, instead of getting 9:10-9:30 deliveries, they were getting their stuff at 14:00-14:30. I had businesses that were getting stuff at 10-10:30 and I was delivering at 14:00-14:30.

Then, Friday, everything was fixed, kind of.

Now, I am debating whether it is worth fixing the ranges on the resi areas or just leave well enough alone.......

TB

well if your back to semi normal by friday the impletetion ??process must be better than in the past. i still get cold chills thinking about when we started 3 years ago.

 

[rod]

They don't really sell any of this crap do they? P.T. Barnum was apparently right

 

[toonertoo]

They certainly do really sell these. One day recently I had 5, 2 going to one house of an elderly woman, and although I dont usually go in homes, I had to put these inside for her. Past all her china closets and knickknacks.
The come out of Canton Ohio, and I did buy an Eden Pure last year, and it does warm things up. It didnt make it through winter though, so they sent me a bigger one for the same price. Hope it makes it this winter.

 

[browniehound]

I'll tell you one thing, you'll never catch me doing 25 stops an hour with a helper, let alone 30-40, I don't care what freaking time of the year it is.

Cino, I have no idea what your route is like, but based on your comment it sounds like its a business route or a country route.

You might think I'm a lunch-runner or route-burner, but its not the case. I work hard just like you do and I follow the methods to work safely and efficiently. Its the area that dictates how many stops/hour I can do.

I think I have the best house call area in the entire country! It just can't get any better than what I have. The streets are close together and most of the houses are less than 30 feet from the street. Walking at my slowest pace or stuck with heavy bulk 25-28/hour is easy. Stick me with some density and a helper and 50/hour is achievable.

 

[Mike Hawk]

I learned long ago that stop counts mean nothing, it's just one number of many that influence how long a route takes. Example, helped a driver at a neighboring center do the mall route he does 60 stops on average, but his route can get up to 1300(a few weeks ago, not peak) packages loaded into 5 package cars.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

How does that work? Do you both drive a pkg car out to the mall and then you shuttle the empty pkg car back to the bldg and pick up the next car? Do you make pickups throughout the day and bring those back as you swap cars?

I have heard of double tripping and even triple tripping but have never heard of quintuple tripping. Are there enough spaces in the DIAD for all of those return to building and left building times or does the driver simply stay on area and your shuttling times are not entered?

My questions may sound stupid but the concept of 5 pkg cars and a helper is a new one to me.

 

[UPS Lifer]

I will never forget when we first went online with Package Level Detail and how it forced management to be honest and actually plan for peak.

Prior to that, the "plan" was totally inadequate for the volume---to the point that, by Christmas eve, we would have hundreds and hundreds of stops piled up in barns, garages, sheds, or anywhere else they could be stashed. These packages werent recorded or sheeted as missed, the only thing that mattered was getting them out of the building to maintain the illusion of a dispatch. On any given day, there were several thousand cubic feet of volume that simply could not be forced into the available vehicles, so drivers would have to go out on area, unload, and return to the building for more, knowing all the while that there was no hope of delivering what they had already offloaded. We would wind up delivering Xmas packages well into January....and yet, on paper at least, everything was still going according to the "plan."

That all changed when we went to PLD. There was no longer any way for management to hide the stops. They couldnt just bury them and clean up the mess later. The "plan" that had worked so well for years could not be sustained. Fortunately, those in upper-level management who had run the same scam when they were new chose to grant "amnesty" towards the operations sups who all the sudden were caught in the open without any wiggle room. Peak season got way better when we started dealing with reality.

You can't really believe this crap you wrote! 36 peak seasons and most of them without PLD and you ALWAYS knew which centers were in trouble. You knew if they were buried and who was screaming for help.

Believe me at peak there is no management team trying to hide stops to get away with something. What a bunch of BS!!

I actually miss peak season. It was one the only time of the year every person really worked their butt off to get the job done and they didn't complain about mgmt hiding packages! Conference calls and meetings were actually informative and productive and not just accountability calls. It was how are we going to help so and so center get out from under!

Managers actually got to run their center. I love this phrase and it was usually only at peak.... "DO WHAT YOU NEED TO GET IT DONE!!!"

SOBERUPS - You are on your way to a great peak!
Merry Xmas - Happy Holidays !!

 

[Mike Hawk]

5 cars is enough for 2 drivers to have 11 hour days. I didn't help him that day, but to finish he would have needed another driver doing deliveries with him out of the other trucks. The most I helped him with was 1000 packages in 4 trucks, another driver did one of the trucks for some more OT, and we did the other 3. He has 50 pickups and he transfers his PU's to the driver that picks up a nearby UPS store. Every package on his truck is SPA'd to Mall RDR(dispatch sup wont fix), so he is at the mercy of his preloader.

 

[dupa]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cino321
I'll tell you one thing, you'll never catch me doing 25 stops an hour with a helper, let alone 30-40, I don't care what freaking time of the year it is.

had district best 4 years ago, avg 60 an hour for 4 hours around 30-40 the other 4 hours, took helper to lunch in between and read the paper for about an hour on my front porch after dropping him off. Total 428 stops
But here is the point: 80- 90 % condos and townhomes all DR other 20% million dollar plus homes with those lovely circle drives right up to the front door,
Its very easy when ur dropping 20 stops in 15 steps.

But Sadly my helper called in that night for reload and they disqualified him.

 

[soberups]

You can't really believe this crap you wrote! 36 peak seasons and most of them without PLD and you ALWAYS knew which centers were in trouble. You knew if they were buried and who was screaming for help.
Believe me at peak there is no management team trying to hide stops to get away with something. What a bunch of BS!!

Prior to PLD there were several instances when I brought 200-300 stops back to the building at 10:30 at night, and was instructed by my center manager to unload them without sheeting them as missed. I was a rookie and didnt know better. I was there, and you werent. Call me a liar if you wish.

Prior to PLD, we often would not get all of of our Christmas packages off until New Years Eve, or even into January if we had weather issues. There would be hundreds of stops buried in sheds and garages. I'm not making this up. I have no need to, and nothing to prove by lying about it. It was the truth. Back in the late 80's/early 90's, it wasnt about service. It was about blindly following the Plan and making the numbers and maintaining the illusion of a functioning operation. As long as the Division Manager could gaze down from his office and see a "clean belt", it wouldnt have mattered to him if we were just dumping the stops off of a cliff.

 

[soberups]

SOBERUPS - You are on your way to a great peak!
Merry Xmas - Happy Holidays !!

You are probably right. Last peak I think I had less than 10 missed stops for the entire month. I worked 60 hrs, but at least I knew when I left the building in the AM that I had a fighting chance of getting done. As I stated earlier, having PLD forces management out of the fantasy and into the reality where the drivers work.

 

[UPS Lifer]

Just because you worked at a center that may have had issues does not mean it happened everywhere. There isn't any 20 year + UPSer out there that doesn't have a horror story about one of their bosses or a bad peak. Don't put all management into your neat little category of dishonesty just because your world had it.

As far as bringing back 200-300 stops ... How many stops did you go out with 350?

Your boss was probably just embarrassed for you!

 

[soberups]

As far as bringing back 200-300 stops ... How many stops did you go out with 350?

Your boss was probably just embarrassed for you!

I had something like 600 stops. In a P500. Half of them were brickloaded in the car the other half were under the belt. I had to go out to a garage on route, empty, and go back to the building to reload because we had to get the belt "clean". I delivered most of the stops that I took out on the 2nd trip, but the ones in the garage from the first trip I just loaded up and brought back in that night. At least they got "dispatched." The next day I had even more and I gave up on bringing them back and I wound up leaving them in the garage for a week or so until I could get to them. The whole center was in the same boat, the genius from IE who had come up with our "plan" had apparently been hitting the crack pipe a bit harder than usual that year. I am sure he got promoted for his fine effort.

 

[1989]

Prior to PLD there were several instances when I brought 200-300 stops back to the building at 10:30 at night, and was instructed by my center manager to unload them without sheeting them as missed. I was a rookie and didnt know better. I was there, and you werent. Call me a liar if you wish.

Prior to PLD, we often would not get all of of our Christmas packages off until New Years Eve, or even into January if we had weather issues. There would be hundreds of stops buried in sheds and garages. I'm not making this up. I have no need to, and nothing to prove by lying about it. It was the truth. Back in the late 80's/early 90's, it wasnt about service. It was about blindly following the Plan and making the numbers and maintaining the illusion of a functioning operation. As long as the Division Manager could gaze down from his office and see a "clean belt", it wouldnt have mattered to him if we were just dumping the stops off of a cliff.

Back in the late 80's/early 90's we didn't have guaranteed ground service so there was no need to sheet as missed. Hopefully you were smart enough to deliver the air.

 

[soberups]

Back in the late 80's/early 90's we didn't have guaranteed ground service so there was no need to sheet as missed. Hopefully you were smart enough to deliver the air.

This statement is incorrect. We were required to sheet every package on the car, and if no attempt was made they were considered missed. Unless, of course, it was peak and your sup was afraid to rock the boat.

 

[Pkgrunner]

It might be a subject of a different thread, but my volume has dropped. Last week, I had 130+ stops everyday (usually dispatch at 115). PAS was implemented on Monday and I have had 103-110 everyday.

Monday and Friday weren't bad. Tues, Weds, Thurs all sucked as they 'tweaked' the route those days.

TB

I will become EDDucated tomorrow. I have been playing with the pre-live EDD for the past couple of weeks; and other than the trace being retardEDD, I like it. The last trace for me that I saw(its changed 5 times in the last 2 months) will be less stops and more miles than I formerly did. It looks to be only about 10- 20% of my former route with a lot of left turns and backtracking. They made a lot of corrections from our driver input, but then apparently erased them about a week ago---yipee, I'm psyched.

 

[outamyway]

retardEDD...

 

[UPS Lifer]

This statement is incorrect. We were required to sheet every package on the car, and if no attempt was made they were considered missed. Unless, of course, it was peak and your sup was afraid to rock the boat.

1989 is not incorrect. There was no national policy back before PLD. Each region, district, division and center ran the operation based on local practice.

You have a tendency to set national policy in your posts! I could be wrong, but I always thought that was up to the Management Committee! This is
one of the reasons I tend to jump right in there to refute what you say.

You present an implausible account of what is normal. I have stuffed P500s to the gills and never got more than 400 packages into one

Case in point ... 600 stops (not packages!) in a P500. Even at peak you probably averaged at least 1.2 packages per stop. This would be approx. 720 packages in a P 500. Over stated and over exaggerated!

This creates a credibility problem with everything you say. I had a bubble nose P 800 on my residential route right next to Beverly Hills and my route only blew up to 325 stops. The car was completely full - no such thing as a helper - I used to run and fling and I still couldn't get it all done. You are saying that they got 600 plus packages into your P500!!!! SURE they did!


I had the top producer in the district in my center. He would carry a 16-17 hour day and get it done under 11 hours. He would have his wife and teenage kids come out to help him and he only carried 475 stops and about 600 packages in a P800. This guy was the top producer in Southern California. So you can understand how it is hard to believe your story.
Now - this was consistent performance the last 3 weeks of peak. This was before helpers and driver release - After helpers and DR, his loads dropped to 12-13.5 hours. I believe that his methods were instrumental in formulating DR and helper routines throughout the Pacific Region.

Mind you, this driver was the top producer before I got to the center, no management person had anything to do with his initiative and ingenuity. He was so good that he kept all his numbers for every peak and knew exactly (within 5 stops) where the sequence range should break for him to take out his optimum load. I learned from him.

I guess if you say it long enough you will believe it to be true! LOL!

As far as peak goes - in the good ole days, I actually took the delivery records from the year before and plotted the stops on a map for all residential areas. I added routes based on the plot. It was very accurate.
It took me 6 weeks working at home on the weekends to get this done but it paid dividends to me and the drivers. I started this process in August.

All my centers were under-allowed at Xmas and 2 had less than a 10 hour paid day. We all worked and played as a team. We had center parties and pot lucks and good memories of peak season. I actually would get depressed when January hit and all the new goals put in place and the micro-managing would work back in.

 

[Mike Hawk]

I had something like 600 stops. In a P500. Half of them were brickloaded in the car the other half were under the belt. I had to go out to a garage on route, empty, and go back to the building to reload

Lifer please read again.

 

[UPS Lifer]

Lifer please read again.

Sorry... My bad!

I apologize Sober

Thanks for bringing it to my attention Mike!