Virtual Time Study

[Re-Raise]

There is no way we could ever accept language in the contract allowing production standards. My experience is a perfect example.

If you figure out how to meet the standard..... they will just change the standard.

They have no explanation for why they are changing my allowance on this bulk stop other than the fact that I am running it faster than they allowed for. I am not speeding, I am not cutting corners, I am delivering about 2 tons of parcels by hand faster than they thought I could, so they are changing the allowance.

 

[bumped]

...yet.

Do you really believe what you type? Or, do you just do it to get a rise from people?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Do you really believe what you type? Or, do you just do it to get a rise from people?

A little of both---I typed "yet" to encourage discussion on the fairness of production standards in a union contract.

 

[40 and out]

I know-next contract cut our pay in half,we pay half our health costs-run scratch or fired-one foul up on telematics-fired. All this talk about what we are going to give up and/or what UPS is going to do to us is getting old. How about a little less gloom and doom and more about what IMPROVEMENTS we are going to get in the next contract.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

We do not produce anything. We move packages, plain and simple. Quit recognizing "production" and it cannot exist. Get it? It's a fallacy, a myth, non-existant!

Basic chaos theory implies that the micromanagement of numbers and every other metric is rather insigificant and, at this point in civilization, somewhat fruitless. Although the geniuses will continue to try to computer model and gps/time study every nook and cranny of every route, the results cannot be linear in an ever changing and unpredictable world.

 

[soberups]

A little of both---I typed "yet" to encourage discussion on the fairness of production standards in a union contract.

I pride myself on being reasonably open-minded, but for the life of me I cant wrap my head around any sort of a fair or equitable system for having production standards written into a labor agreement for UPS drivers.

My wife manages at a company where the employees sit at an assembly line and manufacture tubing assemblies. The production standards there are pretty simple and fair; basically, the operations manager sits down and actually demonstrates to the employees how long it should take to properly assemble each item. They are not expected to do anything that their supervisor is not capable of doing himself under indentical conditions.

UPS isnt an assembly line. I deal with more variables in the first 10 minutes after I clock on than an assembly line employee deals with in an entire week. The so called "allowances" that UPS generates for each aspect of our job were never intended to be fair or realistic to begin with, they were intended to create a "standard" for the average route that can only be met by working off of the clock. Only an idiot would allow UPS's production standards to be part of any labor agreement.

 

[DS]

A little of both---I typed "yet" to encourage discussion on the fairness of production standards in a union contract.

I think production standards should remain as they are(a fair days work....etc)
until they can actually come up with a way of determining what a fair days work is.
Virtual and even actual time studies often have no resemblance to the realities of doing this job.
One day last week my sup came and took 10 stops off me so I'd be under .He said as he left,
make sure you punch out under 9.5,I said I will unless reality gets in the way.

 

[Paycheck]

Have you ever heard of a one legged man in a but kicking contest...............he can't win and neither will anyone who gets a virtual time study! The fact is the young guns in I.E. have no clue what so ever what it takes to do the jobs that attempt to contol. Its a lost cause though because all we have in Atlanta are number crunchers who are also out of touch with what really has to happen to get the jobs done.

 

[bigblu 2 you]

A little of both---I typed "yet" to encourage discussion on the fairness of production standards in a union contract.

"FAIRNESS OF PRODUCTION STANDARDS"? at ups? c'mon dude,really, i mean,c'mon.

 

[beentheredonethat]

Funny little story regarding I.E, ridiculous time allowances, etc...

I delivered to a residential area of apartments near a golf course. The road in is roughly 1/4 of a mile long, 15mph, and there are speed bumps throughout the internal part of the neighborhood. The delivery point was around 30 steps to and from vehicle. One day I did have a chance to view the actual allowance generated by I.E. for this stop. The time allowance for the stop was 2:40. The stop took me 5 min. or so, 100% by the book. I did not work out all of the math, that alone speaks volumes for what is actually expected, rather than what is fair.

The drivers total allowance for the day are broken into parts. There is an allowance for a signature stop, another for a DR stop, there is a per pkg allowance. There is also the initial to/fr mileage allowance and also an on area mile allowance. (there are other misc allowances too) that all roll into the plan day. No one in UPS industrial engineering will ever say that we have an accurate allowance for each and every stop in the day taking into account all aspects of the stop. They will say the allowance is accurate under normal conditions (ie not bad weather, icy roads etc) most of the time. I did time studies decades ago prior to virtual time studies. I can't speak for the virtual studies.

 

[Anonymous 10]

I pride myself on being reasonably open-minded, but for the life of me I cant wrap my head around any sort of a fair or equitable system for having production standards written into a labor agreement for UPS drivers.

My wife manages at a company where the employees sit at an assembly line and manufacture tubing assemblies. The production standards there are pretty simple and fair; basically, the operations manager sits down and actually demonstrates to the employees how long it should take to properly assemble each item. They are not expected to do anything that their supervisor is not capable of doing himself under indentical conditions.

UPS isnt an assembly line. I deal with more variables in the first 10 minutes after I clock on than an assembly line employee deals with in an entire week. The so called "allowances" that UPS generates for each aspect of our job were never intended to be fair or realistic to begin with, they were intended to create a "standard" for the average route that can only be met by working off of the clock. Only an idiot would allow UPS's production standards to be part of any labor agreement.

Bamm there you have it. What I wanted to say I just couldn't put it down like you. Thanks again

 

[upsgrunt]

Two days last week, I had almost identical stats except for the fact that one day I had 49 more miles. My dispatch increased exactly 36 minutes. I asked my center manager how that is possible because even if they were all at 60 mph then my dispatch increase should be 49 minutes. Hell, I don't think anyone can average 30 mph on a route with all the stopping; so realistically my dispatch should have been 98 minutes more.

I was never trained on the flux capacitor in my package car, because the governor shuts it down at 66 mph. Maybe if I could hit that magical 88 mph I could do those 49 miles in 36 minutes.

By the way, the center manager said there must be other variables in there somewhere. Riigghhtt!

 

[Buck Fifty]

U- Unfair
P- Production
S- Standards


Rrriiight !!!

 

[DS]

The drivers total allowance for the day are broken into parts. There is an allowance for a signature stop, another for a DR stop, there is a per pkg allowance. There is also the initial to/fr mileage allowance and also an on area mile allowance. (there are other misc allowances too) that all roll into the plan day. No one in UPS industrial engineering will ever say that we have an accurate allowance for each and every stop in the day taking into account all aspects of the stop. They will say the allowance is accurate under normal conditions (ie not bad weather, icy roads etc) most of the time. I did time studies decades ago prior to virtual time studies. I can't speak for the virtual studies.

Well that's nice.
When reality...happens all this is meaningless.
All they have to go by is that OR they get every morning.

 

[HULKAMANIA]

Its easy for some idiot to sit behind a computer desk and to daydream of how to do YOUR JOB. The time allowances never have made sense to me. I dont know how may packages I have delivered that say 69 lbs on them but you know good and well they are more like 80. Is the time allowance for a package that weighs 69 lbs as compared to 1 lb the same? Say you are driver releasing the same exactly location, 1 is 69 and 1 is 1 lb, are the allowances the same??? For some reason I think that they are, am I correct in thinking the only time you get more allowance is if you put in over 70?

There is a reason this company went from making management drive for a year to be able to be in management, to now just hiring them straight out of college. EDUCATION CANT BUY EXPERIENCE! IF they have experience doing the job and know exactly what you are going through then they are more able to understand. If they are some college educated IDIOT that has no idea what you are doing out there its easy for him/her to have an unrealistic expecations. They are getting so far away from the fair days wage for a fair days pay its not even funny in my opinion.

 

[toonertoo]

Very well said HULKAMANIA.^

 

[beentheredonethat]

Two days last week, I had almost identical stats except for the fact that one day I had 49 more miles. My dispatch increased exactly 36 minutes. I asked my center manager how that is possible because even if they were all at 60 mph then my dispatch increase should be 49 minutes. Hell, I don't think anyone can average 30 mph on a route with all the stopping; so realistically my dispatch should have been 98 minutes more.

I was never trained on the flux capacitor in my package car, because the governor shuts it down at 66 mph. Maybe if I could hit that magical 88 mph I could do those 49 miles in 36 minutes.

By the way, the center manager said there must be other variables in there somewhere. Riigghhtt!

Without looking at your timecard to see what the exact stats were on the two days it's hard to give an exact reason, but I can think of a few.
1. Did you deliver virtually the same number of stops in the same areas over the two different days?
2. Did you deliver to different areas or at least slightly different areas on the two days. - Different defined areas have different stop allowances as well as having different to/fr allowances.
3. The biggest factor on time is the on area miles which give you on area time.

In short, the less on area miles you have in relationship to allowed time (from your stops\pkg allowances) the more allowance per mile you get. The more on area miles you have in relationship to allowed time (again stops\pkg allowances) the less allowance per mile you get.

Some people will say a mile is a mile and you should get the same time.

However, consider a country route where you have to drive 1 mile between each stop on average. The driver gets in, accelerates to speed limit and drives the 2 minutes or so (assuming 30 mph) to get to next stop slows down and stops.

Next consider a driver in a dense area where there is 1/5 mile between each stop. The driver gets in, accelerates and shortly thereafter arrives at the next stop. A lot of time spent in acceleration and braking during that 1/5 of a mile. If you put a stopwatch on the driver and had it running only while the driver was driving (including the start time, stop time). The first driver would spend a lot less time driving then the second guy over the same mile. (since the second guy had to start\stop 5 times to only once for the first guy).

Keep in mind, the on road mgmt team wants you to do well and come in scratch, they don't want tighter standards probably more then you don't want it. They get graded on overallowed by their drivers. They have no motivation to make it look worse.

 

[Jones]

Without looking at your timecard to see what the exact stats were on the two days it's hard to give an exact reason, but I can think of a few.
1. Did you deliver virtually the same number of stops in the same areas over the two different days?
2. Did you deliver to different areas or at least slightly different areas on the two days. - Different defined areas have different stop allowances as well as having different to/fr allowances.
3. The biggest factor on time is the on area miles which give you on area time.

In short, the less on area miles you have in relationship to allowed time (from your stops\pkg allowances) the more allowance per mile you get. The more on area miles you have in relationship to allowed time (again stops\pkg allowances) the less allowance per mile you get.

Some people will say a mile is a mile and you should get the same time.

However, consider a country route where you have to drive 1 mile between each stop on average. The driver gets in, accelerates to speed limit and drives the 2 minutes or so (assuming 30 mph) to get to next stop slows down and stops.

Next consider a driver in a dense area where there is 1/5 mile between each stop. The driver gets in, accelerates and shortly thereafter arrives at the next stop. A lot of time spent in acceleration and braking during that 1/5 of a mile. If you put a stopwatch on the driver and had it running only while the driver was driving (including the start time, stop time). The first driver would spend a lot less time driving then the second guy over the same mile. (since the second guy had to start\stop 5 times to only once for the first guy).

Keep in mind, the on road mgmt team wants you to do well and come in scratch, they don't want tighter standards probably more then you don't want it. They get graded on overallowed by their drivers. They have no motivation to make it look worse.

Very true. We just got our virtual time studies and I know the center team all has their fingers crossed that we gain some time on a lot of the routes because it's pretty ugly right now.

 

[over9five]

Very true. We just got our virtual time studies and I know the center team all has their fingers crossed that we gain some time on a lot of the routes because it's pretty ugly right now.

I think it's sad that the front line center team has to "cross their fingers" instead of having any actual input on the virtual time study.
The other reason they're worried is because this virtual time study is another step toward eliminating their jobs.

 

[Anonymous 10]

Very true. We just got our virtual time studies and I know the center team all has their fingers crossed that we gain some time on a lot of the routes because it's pretty ugly right now.

Fat chance depending on the size(cars you run a day) of your center I bet you lose what equals to a route or two.