To EDD or not to EDD

[I GOT ONE MORE]

Since the package car driver job is being micromanaged by the second with all this new technology (GPS, telematics, etc) ...... I'm wondering about my ability to actually run the route with common sense or with EDD.

Many times EDD sends me to a parking lot with multiple addresses, yet skips one and sends me across the street, only to bring me back to that same lot an entry or two later.
Or the block runs the wrong way, high to low verses low to high.

I know, I know, before any one says it, I've brought these discrepancies to the attention of management MANY times and they haven't been fixed. So, essentially, I am breaking trace when being pragmatic.

Soon, telematics will be telling us when the light has turned green long enough for us to proceed.

To EDD or not to EDD?

...........since it seems I'm not supposed to think on my own any more.

Comments? Suggestions?

 

[bumped]

I only use the EDD as a guide. I skip resi's all the time to get the business off, and my lunch taken before I start my pick ups. I don't bring it up to management as they just don't care. If I ran it stop for stop in EDD I'd be going around the block 4 or 5 times just delivering the same street(can't back). I have the North and West coordinates, so the streets need to be broken down sometimes building/house to building/house.

If its a problem, management will tell you.

 

[BrownArmy]

To EDD or not to EDD? Comments? Suggestions?

I'm a cover driver and I know A LOT of routes...the EDD on some is good, on others really poor. It's all based on whoever inputed the data to populate the EDD.

On some routes, if I ran EDD exactly, I'd be out until midnight! There are times EDD puts me at the wrong end of a one-way street, brings me right back to an address I've already driven by twice, etc. etc. It's even worse when I cover split routes in two different towns...EDD has me going from one town to the other and back again. Obviously non-ideal.

Of course, every route is different (business/residential/city/rural), but I see EDD as a rough guide - it organizes sections of the route together, and (ideally) lets you know where the packages are on the truck.

Other than that, I run routes in the most efficient way possible that I know how to. By all means, use your route and knowledge and common sense to deliver what's on your truck that day in a smart, efficient manner.

If you think about it, we break trace all the time, to deliver NDA's, to make pickup-commitment times, etc. Moreover, the 'trace' in EDD is populated as if you were going to EVERY SINGLE address on EVERY SINGLE street, which of course you aren't, not even during peak.

Your management team doesn't really have time to fix the 'trace'...if you want, have them print out the EDD loop and make corrections to it yourself and have your dispatch sup manually make the changes. Like I said, some routes have better EDD's than others...some are downright awful.

If your management team really wants you to run trace, give them the corrections and put it back on them to make the changes.

 

[lvgolfer962]

^^^^^
same thing i do. i only go by edd if i get sent out blind on a route. a while back they had a hard on about running trace so i ran a route i knew by edd and got beat and added 10 miles to my day and they have never said another word about running trace.

ive learned that you do what you want until they say something to you, then do it there way(stupid) for a couple days and you'll be back to running it they way you were

 

[bumped]

If your management team really wants you to run trace, give them the corrections and put it back on them to make the changes.

Management wants you to correct them, but on your own time. They will not pay you for it.

 

[BrownArmy]

Management wants you to correct them, but on your own time. They will not pay you for it.

No, no, bring the pages with you on-route and mark the changes as you deliver. It's that easy!

 

[bumped]

No, no, bring the pages with you on-route and mark the changes as you deliver. It's that easy!

No, its not. As I said above, I have North and West coordinates. Say, for instance an address is n165 w9100... the edd reads the 1st set of digits, then the second sets of digits. Roads curve, even slightly sometimes...sometimes the n166 coordinate is on the opposite side of the street. I have some 2 block long streets that will give me a n165, n166, and n167. It won't read, in this instance just the w9100 high to low...it reads the n165 high to low

Sometimes businesses are at varying depths on the same street on the same side of the road, and have different coordinate values.

Its hard to explain.


The EDD has to be broken down sometimes to the house, or to the group of houses.

 

[BrownArmy]

No, its not. As I said above, I have North and West coordinates. Say, for instance an address is n165 w9100... the edd reads the 1st set of digits, then the second sets of digits. Roads curve, even slightly sometimes...sometimes the n166 coordinate is on the opposite side of the street. I have some 2 block long streets that will give me a n165, n166, and n167. It won't read, in this instance just the w9100 high to low...it reads the n165 high to low

Sometimes businesses are at varying depths on the same street on the same side of the road, and have different coordinate values.

Its hard to explain.


The EDD has to be broken down sometimes to the house, or to the group of houses.

Are you talking about GPS coordinates? I don't think the EDD has anything to do with GPS, in terms of the EDD trace.

Last year our management team printed out the EDD listings for every route, gave them to the drivers, and said "Fix these, while you're delivering, give them back to us, and we'll make the changes".

The EDD listings were just pages of addresses and addresses' number breaks, in whatever order they'd been initially inputted. It's just a long list of EVERY street with EVERY particular street address #, on down the line. Nothing to do with coordinates, just the 'trace' of the route, street by street by street.

It's just a big long list of values, any of which can be moved around up or down in the hierarchy...

 

[moreluck]

No, its not. As I said above, I have North and West coordinates. Say, for instance an address is n165 w9100... the edd reads the 1st set of digits, then the second sets of digits. Roads curve, even slightly sometimes...sometimes the n166 coordinate is on the opposite side of the street. I have some 2 block long streets that will give me a n165, n166, and n167. It won't read, in this instance just the w9100 high to low...it reads the n165 high to low

Sometimes businesses are at varying depths on the same street on the same side of the road, and have different coordinate values.

Its hard to explain.


Salt Lake City ???


The EDD has to be broken down sometimes to the house, or to the group of houses.

 

[BrownArmy]

I understand now...Bumped's talking about actual address names and not coordinates.

The DIAD certainly has it's limitations, and this is one of them (i.e. reading and dealing with complicated address names).

In any case, EDD will never be perfect. It's up to drivers with route and area knowledge to make sense of EDD and get things done...

 

[soberups]

EDD should be used as a general guide, to be overridden by common sense and area knowledge as necessary.

But...if you are getting harassed or micromanaged over your failure to meet managements impossible expectations....a good way to get them off of your ass is to just shut your brain off and run the route 100% according to EDD. If they had a problem with your production before, they will really be unhappy with what happens when you quit thinking for yourself and do it "their way".

Every so often, running "85% on trace" becomes the flavor of the week again and the sups will start whining at us if we arent generating the metric they need. My response is simple; I will either make the best decisions I can based upon the daily needs of the route and my 16 years of area knowledge, or I will shut my brain down and give them 100% no matter how counterproductive and inefficient that might be. I have neither the time nor the desire to try and calculate the precentage to which I am following EDD on any given day.

I am a driver and my job is to provide the most efficient service that I can to my customers. If I wanted to manipulate irrelevant statistics for a living, I would have gone into management.

 

[I GOT ONE MORE]

Thanks for the feedback, but after reading them, I clearly did not convey my point.

I WANT to be efficient. I WANT to manage my own route based on my nearly 20 years of driving, over 10 on the same route. I WANT to have UPS grow and prosper. I WANT to contribute ethics and morals that give me pride in doing my job and am thankful for having it. It pleases me to leave the customer smiling. I AM UPS to the customer.

I am being talked to about ridiculous telematics measurements. You don't come to me and ask why was I two minutes overallowed at a stop. With that being said, I am inclined to not use my brain and just follow directions. After all, "work as directed" is the bedrock of staying out of trouble.

I'm getting close to my PEER 80 and never before, NEVER, have I looked so forward to retirement. It's appalling.

It's a real shame that daddy's got a new toy and the 95% of us that go the distance for the company have to suffer for the 5% slackers.

I hate this job I'm happy to to have ..... and sober, I just read your post and you hit the nailhead.

 

[soberups]

...I am being talked to about ridiculous telematics measurements. You don't come to me and ask why was I two minutes overallowed at a stop. With that being said, I am inclined to not use my brain and just follow directions. After all, "work as directed" is the bedrock of staying out of trouble......
.

They can ask all they want.

The only response you should ever give is..."Im sorry, I dont recall. If you have specific concerns about my methods or my work pace, you may either ride with me or observe me on area".

Repeat as necessary. Eventually, they will go away and bother someone else.

 

[over9five]

Yikes, I feel sorry for some of you.

My DOL is darn near stop for stop all day long. I set it up "anally" as I was directed to do. That being said, there are days when it makes more sense do do this section of house calls before that section of house calls. So I do it the way it makes sense for that particular day.

No-one has ever bothered me about "percent on trace" or why I sometimes do it this way, sometimes that way. I assume they must figure I'm doing it the correct way for the circumstances of the day.

You are a professional driver. Do the route the best way it can be done for that day, and forget the numbers.

 

[nocturnalbuck]

when i was hired, i was told by the center manager that i was a professional driver now and that i was to complete the route in the least amount of time and distance meanwhile keeping perfect service. if you follow trace you are not doing it most efficiently.

 

[The Blackadder]

I have been told to follow trace to get over 90% on trace. I said EDD needs to be improved for me to pull that off. After being told over and over about this 90% number I decided one day ok I will do it for you. I informed my SUP, and center manager that morning that I was going to follow EDD stop for stop and make them happy as I would be 90% or better on trace.

I got to my 1st stop sent a message I would be over 12 and I would miss biz stops. I was told to call center. I informed them I am going to follow EDD as they have told me too. I said I could do it my way and have no problems. I was told to do it my way I have never heard about 90% trace sense then.

 

[soberups]

A trace that works fine when I have 90 stops and a walk-through load....does not work when I have 150 stops and my car is blown out.

A trace that works fine when all I have to do is residential deliveries...does not work when I have 60 business stops in two cities that are 15 miles apart that have to be delivered from 9:00 to 11:59AM or 1:00 to 4:59PM.

A trace that works fine when I dont have to worry about containing any pickups....does not work when I have a 35-stop pickup route along with an air drop to complete between 2:55 and 4:30, and I have to figure out a way to force 400 cubic feet of pickup volume in over the top of the 400 cubic feet of delivery volume that I am still lugging around in a P-700.

A trace that works fine when I am only responsible for my delivery area....does not work when some idiot in a cubicle decides to eliminate 2 entire routes 15 minutes before start time and I wind up with 60 random stops thrown into a pile on the floor by a preloader who is getting screamed at by his boss to hurry up and get off of the clock.

Its pretty easy to sit behind a desk and create a trace that looks good on MapQuest. Its a bit more complicated when you actually have to go out in the real world with a truck full of boxes and try to follow it.

 

[I GOT ONE MORE]

A trace that works fine when I have 90 stops and a walk-through load....does not work when I have 150 stops and my car is blown out.

A trace that works fine when all I have to do is residential deliveries...does not work when I have 60 business stops in two cities that are 15 miles apart that have to be delivered from 9:00 to 11:59AM or 1:00 to 4:59PM.

A trace that works fine when I dont have to worry about containing any pickups....does not work when I have a 35-stop pickup route along with an air drop to complete between 2:55 and 4:30, and I have to figure out a way to force 400 cubic feet of pickup volume in over the top of the 400 cubic feet of delivery volume that I am still lugging around in a P-700.

A trace that works fine when I am only responsible for my delivery area....does not work when some idiot in a cubicle decides to eliminate 2 entire routes 15 minutes before start time and I wind up with 60 random stops thrown into a pile on the floor by a preloader who is getting screamed at by his boss to hurry up and get off of the clock.

Its pretty easy to sit behind a desk and create a trace that looks good on MapQuest. Its a bit more complicated when you actually have to go out in the real world with a truck full of boxes and try to follow it.

http://www.browncafe.com/forum/f6/i-hate-job-im-happy-have-335568/

I'm just going to SMILE, hope and work for the best, count down the days, and visualize with serendipity the foolishness that lies behind the management eyes I gaze into.

GOD, I hope competent minds in Atlanta contemplate some of the salient thoughts that come across this site. Corporate must be monitoring sites like this, at the least, I hope.

If I were in there shoes, I would likely create such a telematics technology to create and maintain productivity. I get it. Given ample fiscal ability and the shear size of the employee pool, any efficiency gained is business smart. I like working for a company that is business smart.

MANAGERS, do your diligence ....then leave the 95% of us alone. Realize I am on the same team. If I am overallowed at several stops, yet scratch for the day, let it go. Move on.
You are turning career drivers against you, you are creating an environment that does not foster growth, only contempt.

Use your technology to ferret out those who rip you off, but choose well.

You are blowing it and affecting the "FACE" of the company. ME

 

[DS]

We don't have EDD .My typical day will start out with about 75 deliveries(around 175 pkgs).8 -10:30 commits,and 15 -noon commits.
Its generally impossible to go through my load at 10:15 as instructed,and look for misloaded air in the load.
So I do the 10:30 stops first trying do dig out the other crap I have for those stops when possible.
Next,I focus on the remaining noon commits while trying to get rid of the bulk stops so I can actually see whats in there.
Trace is usually a non issue until I can actually walk through the car.
If I get 30 stops done by noon,things are looking good.
Now I can try do get off all the apartments,cod's and time consuming crap.
I have to be done by 2:15 in order to get my break in before my pickup log starts.
I have 15 regular pickups and up to 20 oncalls to service after this.
I have to save most of my resi's in order to accomplish this.I try to do those by trace at around 6:30 pm,
after the 6:30 pm oncall cutoff time.
I must say though,they generally say nothing to me about overallowed.
Thats how it is here

 

[Anonymous 10]

They can ask all they want.

The only response you should ever give is..."Im sorry, I dont recall. If you have specific concerns about my methods or my work pace, you may either ride with me or observe me on area".
Repeat as necessary. Eventually, they will go away and bother someone else.

+1
Sober is giving you some words to live by. He is 100% dead on with this post live it learn it.