What Does ORION Stand For?

[soberups]

...There's a huge disconnect between what I read about ORION in press releases and in the media (Forbes, WSJ, tech mags, etc.), and what you guys are saying about how it works on the ground.
....Does the system help at all? Is it something that could be useful if you had more flexibility to use your own judgment? Is the problem just too difficult to solve in software at this point, especially given real-world things that happen (car wrecks on your route, packages not there, having to run across a 4-lane highway to get to the destination, etc., etc.)?

If properly implemented, ORION could theoretically calculate the shortest linear distance between the consecutive stops on a route that would result in the fewest miles being driven for that route. Put another way, it could theoretically outperform a driver at the job of connecting those 130 dots on a map in the shortest linear distance possible.

The problem is that, even if properly implemented (which seldom happens) the job of delivering a truck stuffed full of packages in real time, real weather, real traffic and in the real world to 130 different locations on a map in the most efficient manner possible has little or nothing to do with the job of connecting those 130 dots on a map in the shortest linear distance possible.

It serves no purpose to save 3/4 of a mile if it costs you 10 extra minutes of sitting at red lights, idling the engine and wasting fuel versus taking a slightly longer route with no stops or traffic to fight.

It serves no purpose to save 3/4 of a mile if doing so requires you to unload 50 packages into a pile on the street and then reload them back into the truck in order to dig out the one package that ORION is telling you to deliver.

Put another way...lets pretend you have errands to run consisting of grocery shopping, taking the dog to the vet, and getting your hair cut. ORION might tell you to save 4 miles by doing the shopping first, getting your hair cut second and taking the dog to the vet last.....but if you followed ORION then your ice cream would melt and your dog would wind up eating half of the groceries and then dying of heat stroke inside the car while you were inside getting a haircut. Real life isn't a video game of connect the dots.

 

[soberups]

The other major flaw with ORION is the blanket assumption that the driver has been doing it "all wrong" this entire time.

As human beings we are certainly not infallible, but the reality is that a driver with any amount of experience does his route a certain way for a reason and the idea that we should just throw all of that reasoning out the window in a frantic attempt to reduce miles by some arbitrary amount is ridiculous.

As drivers we are being given two conflicting messages. When the company demands that we generate some arbitrary ORION compliance metric (85%? 90%? 92%?), what the company is really telling us is that we are no longer competent or trustworthy enough to make a professional decision about what our next stop should be.

The company has every right to tell us that....but then it contradicts itself by turning right around and saying that we are still expected to use our professional judgement and area knowledge (but only 15% of the time) in order to make service on packages that would me missed if we obeyed ORION 100%.

Which is it? Is ORION correct, or not? Are we still trustworthy enough to make decisions, or not? You cant demand that someone be intentionally stupid 85% of the time and then expect them to save the route and avoid missed stops by turning their brain back on for the remaining 15%.

 

[urbie4]

Thanks -- this is great, and a lot more than I can really use! I write marketing stuff for a small software company no one's ever heard of, but also have a lot of years as a technical writer and journalist. My column is basically a "content marketing" piece for our (pathetic) web site, to try and get some repeat traffic. We sell a Business Intelligence™ product, and a year or so ago, one of the executives said, "Hey, we should have a monthly BI column on the web site!" I volunteered, and it's a lot of fun, because I can basically write whatever I want -- and the whole idea of content marketing is that you don't write about your own product, because people won't read that -- you just give them something interesting to read, that will (ideally) get them to come back regularly.

What I'm hearing is "ORION does a decent job of solving the roadmap part of what we do, but doesn't do **** about the other parts, and without them, it's really no **** good and just creates more work, more reason for us to get written up for noncompliance, and more stupid KPI metrics for executives to put in their monotonous PowerPoint slide decks that they show the brass when it's time to lobby for a promotion. It also does a great job of creating subject matter for endless press releases and puff pieces in the media and the annual report about how the company is using Big Data to solve yet another intractable logistics problem, in yet another glorious technological triumph in which software and data geeks do a better job than stupid humans who, until now, have been driving around like idiots wasting time and fuel." Does that about cover it?

 

[upsbeernut]

Orion really means stupid won't work in real world to many variables

Your exactly right, nice to see the same opinion from a different part of the united states. Everyone at pleasantdale in Atlanta are going crazy and they get on my truck before we leave and tell me their horror stories. I'm next for Orion probably Tuesday . Gee can't wait for another waste of 25 million to let me put safety last with left turns and shooting across 6 lanes of traffic to search for a package on a different shelf.

 

[upsbeernut]

Orion is gonna kill one of us with making unsafe and unfair decisions for us without any variables involved. It doesn't know when the customer closes, it doesn't know traffic patterns or school let outs, it doesn't care about the bulk stops in the middle of your floor and it doesn't mind shooting you across 6 lanes of traffic to save a tenth of a mile or to make several dangerous time consuming left turns. We are not stupid decreasing the mileage leads to more stops on the car and saving 60million a year only raises the stock but doesn't overtime cost more you non driving geeks upstairs.

 

[upsbeernut]

I have another Orion story for all outraged fellow drivers. As I was in our nasty locker room a driver was telling me his first day with the Orion team member . This driver was about to get out of the heat and eat lunch and the Orion idiot asked him where are you going and he replied across the street to eat. He said wait a minute that will add miles . Why don't we walk over there? I have a feeling it was down the road no directly across the street. Unbelievable!

 

[hondo]

This was posted on here a while back, I'm not linking to it (from a 'guest', not a member):

Fixing EDD sequencing will not fix Orion (as the ORION algorithms are now written).
A well sequenced Regular Delivery Order (EDD/RDO) will far surpass ORION if the criteria for success is reducing hours worked, safety, and customer satisfaction. The only objective of ORION is reducing miles, and on my route (which is very well sequenced) it adds 10-40 miles a day. I have had 3 days when running ORION added over 50 miles to my route.

 

[upsbeernut]

It most certainly is when your management says it is. We are to be ORION compliant. If your mileage is too high you will be reprimanded. We are to look for missing pkgs but if no luck and is found later in a wrong location it becomes a misload. ORION does not allot for this. The decision becomes theirs. I'll gladly comply either way. Yes I know .... Stupid


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Now your going back to a preload problem which has never been fixed in my 28 years. I'm thoroughly disgusted with trying to juggle delivering everything and worrying about compliance while ziz zagging around like a maniac to get the air off and not missing a package which might not be on the the truck. I guess corporate thinks we deliver letters all day and theres no traffic instead of packages that are 3 times the size of a normal human. Please let us do our job without mixing Flintstones meet the jetsons mentality.

 

[upsbeernut]

This was posted on here a while back, I'm not linking to it (from a 'guest', not a member):

That's all they had to do is ask us for the info to properly put the route in a circle

 

[upsbeernut]

When is you blog or article due? Because after a week of UPS I don't have the time or energy right now. I might be up for a phone conversation someday if you are interested.

As graduate with a Computer Science degree I am impressed with ORION, but it has many faults. The biggest problem though is the simpletons in the management chain that don't understand the intractability of the problem and how valuable their driver's on-area knowledge is in regards to speed and customer service. They just want to push fake results upstream to please people and be promoted.

So if UPS wants to spend a dollar to save a nickel in order to show shareholders some bull charts...fine pay me the triple time in excessive over-time penalty pay.

Exactly if the public got a hold of this ,stock would drop and shareholders would bail out. Its always smoke and mirrors especially when someone important walks thru and the warehouse looks immaculate . The funny thing is with Xmas coming around rumor has it their gonna put Orion aside, so why did you buy it and stop having so many plans during the week. I feel like a swing driver on my own 23 year route with 28 years total driving.

 

[upsbeernut]

If properly implemented, ORION could theoretically calculate the shortest linear distance between the consecutive stops on a route that would result in the fewest miles being driven for that route. Put another way, it could theoretically outperform a driver at the job of connecting those 130 dots on a map in the shortest linear distance possible.

The problem is that, even if properly implemented (which seldom happens) the job of delivering a truck stuffed full of packages in real time, real weather, real traffic and in the real world to 130 different locations on a map in the most efficient manner possible has little or nothing to do with the job of connecting those 130 dots on a map in the shortest linear distance possible.

It serves no purpose to save 3/4 of a mile if it costs you 10 extra minutes of sitting at red lights, idling the engine and wasting fuel versus taking a slightly longer route with no stops or traffic to fight.

It serves no purpose to save 3/4 of a mile if doing so requires you to unload 50 packages into a pile on the street and then reload them back into the truck in order to dig out the one package that ORION is telling you to deliver.

Put another way...lets pretend you have errands to run consisting of grocery shopping, taking the dog to the vet, and getting your hair cut. ORION might tell you to save 4 miles by doing the shopping first, getting your hair cut second and taking the dog to the vet last.....but if you followed ORION then your ice cream would melt and your dog would wind up eating half of the groceries and then dying of heat stroke inside the car while you were inside getting a haircut. Real life isn't a video game of connect the dots.

You are right on point with your thread cause wouldn't overtime be much more costly than gas . What's gonna happen with the pickups that are started at a certain time everyday. My route is mainly residential and when 3 30 rolls around doesn't matter where I am , I break off and head to them, so I run my route in sections keeping that section of houses close to the pick up area, so after the pickups I go straight to that are saving miles and making deliveries a little sooner than going back where I left off.

 

[OPTION3]

ORION......Either 100% or 0%....it’s that simple

 

[upsgrunt]

I am the first in our center to go on it; Thursday was my "shadow ride". Of course, my load was as light as it has ever been, but I did have a saver misload that was worth 25 extra miles. The trainer acted like something like that doesn't happen.

Friday I was by myself and decided to just follow it 100% and if I needed to break off at 430 to get business, or pickups, I would. I know I could have saved at least 20 miles doing it my way, but I just turned my brain off and went to where it told me to go next. It was actually very freeing not to think anymore and got me to thinking I had better thank the center manager on Monday for the pay raise.

 

[upsgrunt]

If a driver had a route that had no business or pickup committments, I think Orion could be a pretty cool thing, and it might work nicely. I'm thinking next week I won't even indirect rural stops in town because of the "not trusting my decision making" that Sober was talking about. Option3 said 100% or 0%, and that's just the attitude I feel I am going to take. If UPS wants to pay me to drive more miles, than so be it.

 

[upsbeernut]

ORION......Either 100% or 0%....it’s that simple

What do you mean?

 

[upsbeernut]

If a driver had a route that had no business or pickup committments, I think Orion could be a pretty cool thing, and it might work nicely. I'm thinking next week I won't even indirect rural stops in town because of the "not trusting my decision making" that Sober was talking about. Option3 said 100% or 0%, and that's just the attitude I feel I am going to take. If UPS wants to pay me to drive more miles, than so be it.

That answered my question for option three. I see do it their way and watch it fail.

 

[soberups]

What do you mean?

I think he means either following it 100% or shutting it off and using common sense and area knowledge. This would not result in a true 0% compliance metric, however...when I turn mine off I usually wind up being between 40% and 70% compliant.

 

[IVE GOTTA PACKAGE 4U]

I think he means either following it 100% or shutting it off and using common sense and area knowledge. This would not result in a true 0% compliance metric, however...when I turn mine off I usually wind up being between 40% and 70% compliant.

They make this job,waaaay harder just than It needs to be. Orion should be a tool just like the rearview camera.

 

[upsbeernut]

I think he means either following it 100% or shutting it off and using common sense and area knowledge. This would not result in a true 0% compliance metric, however...when I turn mine off I usually wind up being between 40% and 70% compliant.

rumor has it we have to be 90% compliant .

 

[brownmonster]

rumor has it we have to be 90% compliant .

We don't have it yet. I run about 220 miles a day and I pull pkgs from almost every shelf as I'm cruising along chasing air commits and pickups. It will either be a complete cluster or roughly what I do now, pick off stops I'm close to and save ones I'll be closer to later.