Who's Stupid Idea Was "Stops Per Car"?

[pretzel_man]

i see flawed logic... say i have farmlands,, each land owner has 200 acres,,, the guy over there has a super tight commercial route,, 30 plus a hour,, how do you compare the 2 ? Both work just as hard but one spends hours driving...... i dont see the blanket logic working

It DOESN"T work! Good dispatch or not. Drivers working peak hours throughout the year, missed pieces, angry customers, increased accidents and injuries due to fatigue, need I say more?



If there isn't enough work for a driver to get at least an 8 hour dispatch then work should be moved from a route that has more than enough. That makes sense. But cutting a full route (or more) to just to satisfy a silly metric that only leads to drivers working peak hours, missed pieces, angry customers, and the others I mentioned above. Its rather obvious to understand. If the bean counters would wake up and join the real world they could see this.

Stops per car is a target for the entire center. It does not mean that every single driver gets the same stops per car. It has been used for planning since I started over 30 years ago.

The bottom line is that the number of drivers needed fluctuates with the number of stops. I realize its easier said than done.

P-Man

 

[OVERBOARD]

Stops per car is a target for the entire center. It does not mean that every single driver gets the same stops per car. It has been used for planning since I started over 30 years ago.

The bottom line is that the number of drivers needed fluctuates with the number of stops. I realize its easier said than done.

P-Man

I bet the stops per car have increase over 30 stops per car in those 30 yrs.
They always go up but never go down.

 

[JustTired]

Stops per car is a target for the entire center. It does not mean that every single driver gets the same stops per car. It has been used for planning since I started over 30 years ago.

The bottom line is that the number of drivers needed fluctuates with the number of stops. I realize its easier said than done.

P-Man

30 yrs ago, SPC was one of the few things you could use as a measurement for dispatching. Today, there are a myriad of metrics to choose from. Unfortunately most are flawed. These programs weren't designed to be flawed. It took some work (or more precisely, lack of work or knowledge) to get them there.

If you use flawed metrics, you're going to get flawed results. They have taken a rather simple idea of picking up and delivering pkgs and turned it into an exercise in frustration for both the driver and the customer.

I'm not saying that everyone should be left to their own devices without any metrics. I'm saying that sometimes the simple solution is the best solution. Why make things harder than they need to be? Unless, of course, that is the goal!!

 

[The Blackadder]

30 yrs ago, SPC was one of the few things you could use as a measurement for dispatching. Today, there are a myriad of metrics to choose from. Unfortunately most are flawed. These programs weren't designed to be flawed. It took some work (or more precisely, lack of work or knowledge) to get them there.

If you use flawed metrics, you're going to get flawed results. They have taken a rather simple idea of picking up and delivering pkgs and turned it into an exercise in frustration for both the driver and the customer.

There was this old TV show called the Red Green Show.

He had a saying and I think UPS lives it. He would say if it aint broke keeping fixing it until it is.

UPS took a system that was not broking and fixed it until they broke it.

The really sad part is in my building and I would assume this is the case in most buildings. The mgmt in my building knows its wrong they know we are wasting big dollars daily.

Why then don't they fix it? They can't they have to WAD.

Why don't they speak up? Very simple they are all worried they might be fired next, they all have family"s to feed. So it is better to keep your head down and say nothing I call it the Sgt Shultz>>>> I see nothing I hear nothing I know nothing.

Someone posted it before that they wish UPS mgmt. would think more like a customer, I could not agree more. When you have people waiting on us all day because they have no idea what time we will be getting there it is not good.

 

[pretzel_man]

also,, you blame poor dispatch,, whats the normal training on a on road going into dispatch?

P-man, such a well written, lucid explination of the stops per car goal. Par for the course for you and I want to thank you again for the insight.

My questionnow becomes: does stops per car make us money? If the number says we should run 29 does it work? Or does running 30 make us more profitable because of less service failures and less overtime pay?

I ask this because everytime they chop a route in my center it ends in disaster. 5 drivers over 11, missed pieces, missed pickups and simply just frustration all around. What's the verdict P-man?

Why not just let 6 drivers come in at 8 hours instead of 5 at 11 hours with all the service failures? I'm just asking here...

Two great questions. I'll try and answer.... (The answer is long however)

Does SPC save UPS money? In theory, it really should not (at least not a lot). Its a planning metric to determine the number of drivers needed.

Take the 30 car center for example. Putting out 5 less SPC than planned means one more driver is on road than planned. Lets ignore AM time, To/from, and the vehicle which is extra cost.... In theory, the drivers should now come in 20 minutes (or so) early on average. Brownie, this is the example you gave, right?

In the real world unfortunately however, this doesn't happen. If it did, there would be less of a focus on SPC. Unfortunately, when an extra route is on the road, drivers do not come in early enough to offset the extra driver.

When I visit a center, its the last thing I look at. I look at the dispatch, service, EDD accuracy, misloads, the miles index (Stops per mile), Ov/Un. If all those are okay, I don't really care about SPC. Also, even when SPC is okay, those other metrics are more important.

When they hit a SPC and the other issues exist, its almost always due to the dispatch, and here is why.... Take my example of needing to go from 30 cars to 29 cars. To do this properly, many routes will need to be adjusted. CD principles demand this. Because this is difficult to do, dispatch supervisors try to make as few changes as possible to break up the route. Doing that causes a poor dispatch. I end up seeing pocket dispatches all over the place and that is ineffective.

My point is that the cause is NOT the planning metric of SPC. The issue is the dispatch. Some centers do this well, some poorly.

Hellfire, it used to be that a PDS was given a training class of about a week. They were first taught Control Dispatch principles. They then learned the planning and execution systems (DPS, AMS, PAS, ODSe, etc.) In the clase they would dispatch the Clarkville center.

Today, this training has unfortunately been watered down. Some districts train well, some train by word of mouth.

When I blame the dispatch, there is another piece. Its the loop layout. The PDS is allowed to change the trace, but not the loop layout. If a poor loop layout exists, cutting out a driver is even more difficult to do. I often see this when I visit centers.

So, SPC is just one of many metrics. Its a planning metric. PDS' are pushed to hit SPC, but they are also pushed to reduce miles. Monitoring all metrics is the right thing to do.

P-Man

 

[pretzel_man]

Its OK to have business goals, and for those goals to be expressed in the form of metrics.

Its not OK when adherence to the metric causes more problems than it purports to solve.

Blind, unthinking obedience is not the key to running a successful business. When we blindly and unthinkingly continue to produce a metric...even at the expense of safety, good business practices and adherence to the labor agreement....we are not doing right by our customers or our shareholders or our people.

When a center (mine) is dispatching an average paid day in excess of 10 hours....and when that center is paying out $5,000 per week in over 9.5 grievance settlements...and when a center is having its drivers work up to 14 hours per day and they are running out of DOT hours in September.....THEN THE ***** STOPS-PER-CAR METRIC IS WRONG AND SOMEBODY IN ATLANTA NEEDS TO PULL HIS HEAD OUT OF HIS BUTT AND ADJUST THE METRIC instead of continuing to pretend that the metric is accurate and blaming "poor dispatching" for the problem.

SPC is not a business goal, its a plan for the center. Atlanta is NOT monitoring your local SPC. The SPC car plan came from the local operation (along with IE). Its monitored by the local division manager.

This has nothing to do with fear. It has to do with the dispatch.

The stops call for x number of drivers. This is based on the SPC plan. It doesn't matter what the SPC number is... Stops divided by SPC equals the number of drivers needed for planning purposes.

From there, the center creates a dispatch. The dispatch execution is measured against many metrics. (% on trace, Miles index, SPORH, SPC, missorts, EDD accuracy, etc.)

SPC is only one metric. Very often, when there is a problem in metrics, SPC has a problem too.

Like it or not, this is how planning works. I have dispatched many centers. The process is the same and necessary. When SPC cannot be hit (all else being equal) the dispatch is the culprit. (Often, the loop layout is the culprit if the dispatch cannot be fixed).

The controlled dispatch manual (360 manual) outlines the process.

You accuse me of blaming poor dispatching instead of adjusting the SPC. I have gone to many centers and reworked the dispatch. We fixed the dispatch and reduced paid day while also hitting SPC. I will not apologize for reducing miles and expecting to replace those miles with stops.

Now, for your center setting a SPC that equals a 10 hour dispatch is inappropriate. I agree with that. But, how do you know that the issue is the SPC target and not how the dispatch is assigned? You are closer to it than me. If you say that SPC is too high in your center, okay. I would have to analyze it to see.

From my experience, the planning target is rarely the problem.

P-Man

P-Man

 

[just interested]

Pretzel - thanks for taking the time to explain in detail what's happening behind the scenes (post #45).

Just wondering what it is you do for the company?

 

[pretzel_man]

Pretzel - thanks for taking the time to explain in detail what's happening behind the scenes (post #45).

Just wondering what it is you do for the company?

Thank you. I do a lot of special projects, auditing, and training. I am not part of Corporate Atlanta. Not I.E. Most work is in operations. Dispatch has been a focus for quite a while now.

 

[browned_out]

P-Man, One thing I have not read here is the unrealistic allowance given to routes. Routes are worth less these days, so more work is needed to make the numbers (8.5 or9.0 planned day). It seems that when pas/edd was installed at our center all routes suddenly were worth less??? Put that with poor training and the scenario you state above and its no wonder we are all working harder and longer. If your job is to go around and fix these problems, please come to my center ASAP. When I bid my route the target stops was 125, this is a Heavy industrial route with appox 70/80 bus stops and 45/55 res, 350/450 pkgs dlvrd and 250/350 pick up pieces. Suprise, now my stops are up to 140/155, still dlvr 70/80 bus but now get exta res stops 70/80????? If they dispatch me with 135 stops it comes in under 8hrs? I have been told that my sporh needs to increase, I currently run a 17/18 sporh and come in at 1.50 over allowed. On rare occassions I can hit a 19/20 but will still be over allowed for the day, not sure what more I can do. I am starting to feel really burned out and losing faith in our management team (company wide).

 

[pretzel_man]

P-Man, One thing I have not read here is the unrealistic allowance given to routes. Routes are worth less these days, so more work is needed to make the numbers (8.5 or9.0 planned day). It seems that when pas/edd was installed at our center all routes suddenly were worth less??? Put that with poor training and the scenario you state above and its no wonder we are all working harder and longer. If your job is to go around and fix these problems, please come to my center ASAP. When I bid my route the target stops was 125, this is a Heavy industrial route with appox 70/80 bus stops and 45/55 res, 350/450 pkgs dlvrd and 250/350 pick up pieces. Suprise, now my stops are up to 140/155, still dlvr 70/80 bus but now get exta res stops 70/80????? If they dispatch me with 135 stops it comes in under 8hrs? I have been told that my sporh needs to increase, I currently run a 17/18 sporh and come in at 1.50 over allowed. On rare occassions I can hit a 19/20 but will still be over allowed for the day, not sure what more I can do. I am starting to feel really burned out and losing faith in our management team (company wide).

Browned:

The dispatch is based on Paid day, not planned day. If they follow the procedures, any allowance changes do not alter the dispatch. I cannot tell you what your PDS put in the system for you but....

If you are 1.5 hours over allowed, then they should put that in the system. Its a fair question to ask and it can be seen in the DPS system. So in your case, in order for you to have a 9.5 paid day, they would need to put 8.0 hours of planned work on the car. The system counts it that way.

If in your case, they said you were only .5 overallowed, then the system would be putting 9 hours of planned work on your car to hit a 9.5 paid day. If you are 1.5 overallowed in reality, then you would be really working 10.5 hours in your case.

Honestly, in centers I work in, the result is often an increase in stops per car. We work on improving the preload, improving the trace and dispatch. When that is done, miles per stop increase. That means miles is down and we replace the reduced miles with stops. That is the proper way to increase SPC.

P-Man

 

[bumped]

Coming from a small center, on Mondays, we couldn't reach our STP unless we were buried with the dispatch. The rural routes made it hard to achieve it. But, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday we could easily make STP, and on Friday we had a hard with it again. We could make our STP metric by averaging for the week by letting the center manager run the center. The center manager's bosses would not allow a weekly STP instead we had to live by a daily STP.

There is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to dispatch. If one sees their buried the the drive to get done early is gone. Its like if you have 5 stops to do in 10 minutes before your metro most will pick up the pace to get it done. If the same person has 20 stops left in that 10 minutes one might get 1 or 2 of those stops done.

 

[hellfire]

Browned:

The dispatch is based on Paid day, not planned day. If they follow the procedures, any allowance changes do not alter the dispatch. I cannot tell you what your PDS put in the system for you but....

If you are 1.5 hours over allowed, then they should put that in the system. Its a fair question to ask and it can be seen in the DPS system. So in your case, in order for you to have a 9.5 paid day, they would need to put 8.0 hours of planned work on the car. The system counts it that way.

If in your case, they said you were only .5 overallowed, then the system would be putting 9 hours of planned work on your car to hit a 9.5 paid day. If you are 1.5 overallowed in reality, then you would be really working 10.5 hours in your case.

Honestly, in centers I work in, the result is often an increase in stops per car. We work on improving the preload, improving the trace and dispatch. When that is done, miles per stop increase. That means miles is down and we replace the reduced miles with stops. That is the proper way to increase SPC.

P-Man

in my situation,, in the last year my dispatch has gone from 130 to constant 170's i have also gained about 30 miles. Worst part is my P700 cant handle the volume,, the load breaks down everyday and the car is a mess. last week i went out twice with over 200 stops,, both days my planned day was under 9/5 ,, last peak ,with a 4 hour helper 190's gave me a high 10 hr planned day... none of the mystery math or blame game changes the fact i gained 40 plus stops, more miles,, and lost alot of time ,,,nothing adds up

 

[soberups]

in my situation,, in the last year my dispatch has gone from 130 to constant 170's i have also gained about 30 miles. Worst part is my P700 cant handle the volume,, the load breaks down everyday and the car is a mess. last week i went out twice with over 200 stops,, both days my planned day was under 9/5 ,, last peak ,with a 4 hour helper 190's gave me a high 10 hr planned day... none of the mystery math or blame game changes the fact i gained 40 plus stops, more miles,, and lost alot of time ,,,nothing adds up

The only part of the equation that doesnt add up is that you are taking your lunch.

If you would just knuckle under and work through your lunch while entering the full hour on your timecard, all of the "mystery math" would start making perfect sense.

Look in the mirror. The problem is you. You arent being a "team player" and donating an hour per day of free labor like the company wants you to.

 

[hellfire]

The only part of the equation that doesnt add up is that you are taking your lunch.

If you would just knuckle under and work through your lunch while entering the full hour on your timecard, all of the "mystery math" would start making perfect sense.

Look in the mirror. The problem is you. You arent being a "team player" and donating an hour per day of free labor like the company wants you to.

sir,, im guessing you never read my posts

 

[Re-Raise]

Browned:

The dispatch is based on Paid day, not planned day. If they follow the procedures, any allowance changes do not alter the dispatch. I cannot tell you what your PDS put in the system for you but....

If you are 1.5 hours over allowed, then they should put that in the system. Its a fair question to ask and it can be seen in the DPS system. So in your case, in order for you to have a 9.5 paid day, they would need to put 8.0 hours of planned work on the car. The system counts it that way.

If in your case, they said you were only .5 overallowed, then the system would be putting 9 hours of planned work on your car to hit a 9.5 paid day. If you are 1.5 overallowed in reality, then you would be really working 10.5 hours in your case.

What? In reality they knowingly put 9.5 planned days on the street and don't care if it takes you 10.5. They don't change the dispatches based on how far over you run, they just keep pressuring you to go faster.

All management can do is pressure the people actually doing the work to work faster.

If you think you can come into our center and adjust the routes that we know like the back of our hands from your pedestal in the office, good luck.

If I even tried to run my route by the trace that management put in I would be over 300 miles a day.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

The bottom line here is that the SPC metric doesn't have enough positive results (MOST LIKELY NONE!) to be used. Once people realize that its only a metric that IE uses simply for the sake of having the metric then, and only then, can we move on and move on to another stupid idea.

 

[Catatonic]

The bottom line here is that the SPC metric doesn't have enough positive results (MOST LIKELY NONE!) to be used. Once people realize that its only a metric that IE uses simply for the sake of having the metric then, and only then, can we move on and move on to another stupid idea.

No matter what is used it will still be stupid so we might as well keep this one since we all understand it now.

 

[wornoutupser]

P Man,

The problem is that not all center are metro areas.

I work in a vastly extended area and SPC is the hot topic here. In order to meet that goal here and keep the hyper rural runs in a workable (12) hour day, the closer in runs get slammed.

The metric does not work but it is held dearly by my center manager because he has to. We run meet point after meet point, we leave up to an hour late every day loading our own cars and then get to look forward to a 11-12-13 hour day onroad. I am in Florida and we have drivers running out of DOT hours in the last two months and we have drivers breaking records here for total income for the year. If you check around, you will see that we have a huge increase in accidents here. Why? The drivers are being pushed too hard and threatened daily with discipline for SPH.

The center is tired, disgusted and demoralized and peak is around the corner.

If UPS would start concentrating on servicing the customer again instead of "meeting metrics", stock price would not be an issue. Customer service is the key to running a vital business and Scott Davis has lost this concept. Service is what we sell, not the silly "logistics" crap that Scott Davis put out in the advertising. We cant deliver major business stops at the same time on any given day of the week. People in Florida HATE our new ads, they dont want fluff, the want their package on the correct day and at a predictable time. With SPC as the planning tool, they get neither.

The local Fed Ex building is onroad every day 1 hour ahead of UPS. Most of the locals use Fed Ex because of the gain time for critical shipping- but daily we get add cuts after start time and are still moving stops around up to an hour after start time.

IMHO Scott Davis needs to go. Peroid. He has sunk this company to the lowest level that I have seen in my 25 years + of being here.

I would change my opinion of Davis if he would ever get out of Atlanta and go see the operations that are not "groomed" for his visits, such as Orlando was a few years ago. I was told that UPS spent $15,000.00 on the tent, palm trees, food and cleaning yet UPS still didnt have the funds to paint new stripes on the ground for the feeders backing in at night. He needs to see the REAL UPS in action.

Just my opinion, but I ran a business before I ever worked here. Wornout

 

[deleted9]

I bet the stops per car have increase over 30 stops per car in those 30 yrs.
They always go up but never go down.

Analysis - center with 6000 stops/ 50 drivers = 120 spc
center with 6000 stops/ 48 drivers = 125 spc
5 stops per car means 2 less drivers, 2 less package cars, 2 less routes with to and from miles, 2 less diads = a whole lot of money saved

A driver is out on the road with no supervision = let the work supervise the drivers

 

[EAT MY OVERALLOWED]

P Man,

The problem is that not all center are metro areas.

I work in a vastly extended area and SPC is the hot topic here. In order to meet that goal here and keep the hyper rural runs in a workable (12) hour day, the closer in runs get slammed.

The metric does not work but it is held dearly by my center manager because he has to. We run meet point after meet point, we leave up to an hour late every day loading our own cars and then get to look forward to a 11-12-13 hour day onroad. I am in Florida and we have drivers running out of DOT hours in the last two months and we have drivers breaking records here for total income for the year. If you check around, you will see that we have a huge increase in accidents here. Why? The drivers are being pushed too hard and threatened daily with discipline for SPH.

The center is tired, disgusted and demoralized and peak is around the corner.

If UPS would start concentrating on servicing the customer again instead of "meeting metrics", stock price would not be an issue. Customer service is the key to running a vital business and Scott Davis has lost this concept. Service is what we sell, not the silly "logistics" crap that Scott Davis put out in the advertising. We cant deliver major business stops at the same time on any given day of the week. People in Florida HATE our new ads, they dont want fluff, the want their package on the correct day and at a predictable time. With SPC as the planning tool, they get neither.

The local Fed Ex building is onroad every day 1 hour ahead of UPS. Most of the locals use Fed Ex because of the gain time for critical shipping- but daily we get add cuts after start time and are still moving stops around up to an hour after start time.

IMHO Scott Davis needs to go. Peroid. He has sunk this company to the lowest level that I have seen in my 25 years + of being here.

I would change my opinion of Davis if he would ever get out of Atlanta and go see the operations that are not "groomed" for his visits, such as Orlando was a few years ago. I was told that UPS spent $15,000.00 on the tent, palm trees, food and cleaning yet UPS still didnt have the funds to paint new stripes on the ground for the feeders backing in at night. He needs to see the REAL UPS in action.

Just my opinion, but I ran a business before I ever worked here. Wornout

I agree. Scott Davis is more than likely the worst leader this company has ever had in its existence. He is definitely the worst CEO we have ever had since going public -- he is CLUELESS.