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

[Bubblehead]

I say "No cutting of routes after the preload is down or the plan is in place!" This is my order and philosophy. Problem is, I'm not sure I spelled
Philososphy correctly and I have zero say in the matter because I'm just a driver!

However, its been my obserevation over the years that once you start messing with the plan and the preload, service failures run amuck. The question then becomes: does the differenting from the plan and added service failures offset the gains in profit created by the change in plan at the last minute?

We come to work everyday to make money, right? Not to make a number ? Or do we? I understand making a number consistently will produce a profit and an efficent business. However, when you have to manipulate tens of people and hundreds to low thousands of parcels in the final hour or two to make a number that is profitable in general and when executed properly, too many things go wrong.

For example, add/cuts don't get pulled forcing extra miles, fuel, and labor on road to get the right work to the right people. Also, maybe pulling the route at the last second forces extra labor costs on the preload and the driver ranks? Add to this, the missed schools and small businesses because these are never considered when moving a split. Even when servicable, the driver must break trace to do so again wasting, time, fuel, miles, and labor.

If its my business, I leave the route in just to service all the parcels and satisfy the customer. Less service failures, less overtime, less problems appears to be a nice outcome.

For people in the know (Hi Pretzelman!), how far off base am I?

Thanks in advance,
Brownie

You're way off Brownie with that real world observation.
In the cyberworld anything is possible

 

[Re-Raise]

So, we've had the stops per car metric for a little while now but its really getting out of hand. I was wondering exactly who it was that came up with the idea. They should be given an award for worst idea EVER! If they insist that we continue to have centers with two thirds of their drivers over 9.5 AND 10.5 then they should at least set forth realistic goals per center. Its idiotic to think that a center with 40 routes (10 of which are rural routes that average less than 90 stops) can satisfy a goal of 133 stops per car without cutting too many routes and having excessive over 9.5s. Who is responsible for this? Were they ever a driver? Did they just get a little crazy when they learned how to use a spreadsheet? What college taught them this nonsense? I'm just curious.

Yeah what he said....( could have saved myself a lot of wasted posts)

 

[Bubblehead]

I have to admit that before Tie accused Hoaxster of being a "company shill" on this site, I wasn't familiar with the term.
I was able to figure it out though in context to the discussion without looking it up.
With that in mind, I find myself wondering how this accusation hasn't found it's way to Pretzel Man.
Maybe it has and I just missed it.
His writing style is both polite and disarming, all the while singleminded in it's content.
He never seems to chime in on anything but issues involving allowances, metrics, timestudies, and the like.
Does he really have no other interests or experiences within the business, or is he "on the clock"?

 

[Re-Raise]

I have to admit that before Tie accused Hoaxster of being a "company shill" on this site, I wasn't familiar with the term.
I was able to figure it out though in context to the discussion without looking it up.
With that in mind, I find myself wondering how this accusation hasn't found it's way to Pretzel Man.
Maybe it has and I just missed it.
His writing style is both polite and disarming, all the while singleminded in it's content.
He never seems to chime in on anything but issues involving allowances, metrics, timestudies, and the like.
Does he really have no other interests or experiences within the business, or is he "on the clock"?

Didn't you hear? He visits centers.

 

[Catatonic]

Didn't you hear? He visits centers.

Wrong shill ... P-Man is the one that visits centers

 

[pretzel_man]

So just to get this straight, and possibly help others understand. You're saying if it's improved and you take say 10 miles off a route that would take a driver going 50mph, without any traffic, 12 minutes 30 seconds. You could then add another stop or two that does not increase the distance and would reduce the paid day if said stops could be completed in less than 12 minutes 30 seconds.

Am I correct in this understanding of what you're saying pretzel_man?

Pretty close.....

In reality, average on area MPH is closer to 25. We can use 30 just for round numbers. Every mile reduced equates to about 2 minutes. If I can reduce 10 miles, that is about 20 minutes. Adding 3 or 4 stops is less than the 20 minutes saved (just like you said). Of course, this requires a good dispatch and good trace.

SPC went up and paid day went down. If I also clean up the load, there are additional savings.

 

[pretzel_man]

You can't trace my route better than I can. I have ran it for over twenty years. More stops adds time to my paid day. It is pretty simple.

It is amazing how you can convince yourself we are clueless and all we need is your wisdom.

Okay, maybe you are perfect. Show me where I ever said drivers were clueless...

 

[pretzel_man]

OK....in theory that sounds pretty good.
Here's my question.....
Let's say every driver has a more or less fixed area that they deliver every day. The trace of that area is tweaked and is reduced by an average of 5 miles per day. Now, where are these "extra" stops coming from and won't they add to the miles you just saved? If it's 5 miles for 5miles, then yes, it should work. But, rural areas would seldom work out that way considering that those stops would be coming from an adjacent area that you would have to drive to before you even started delivering.

The problem I seen is that when I would get work off of the adjacent driver, it was loaded and traced exactly as that driver would have ran it. In my case, that would have involved dead-heading about 5-6 miles and then working my way back to where I started from. I had enough sense to set it up so that I was delivering down to that point and delivering back up to my area. I don't think that EDD can make those adjustments to a trace received from another area. I guess my point is the same one I've made for years....that a good driver saves this company miles every day. Unless, of course, they decide to follow a trace set up by someone who hasn't much of a clue combined with a system that can't adjust a trace to compensate for another driver delivering it.

You just can't take the human factor out of the equation without sacrificing some efficiency. If you want a zombie-like figure driving the car and delivering the pkgs.....you better have an almost perfect trace and load.

If a good dispatch exists, good trace exists, and good loads then there is nothing to fix. People on here have complained about bad loops, bad / stupid dispatch, bad loads. Of course, those conditions will result in unproductive work.

All I am saying is that fixing those things can both increase SPC and reduce paid day.

BTW, poor dispatch and trace can have an enormous effect on rural routes like you describe. If a dispatch adjustment requires that much deadheading, isn't that an indication of a porr dispatch?

I never said it is easy to do, but its all part of the 360 methods. Its just back to the basics.

 

[pretzel_man]

Ugh Are you talking about the center as a whole or individual route?.

The impression I got from P-Man's comments were that he could increase an individual driver's stops while also reducing his paid day by magically retracing his route to cut miles.

Now if you are talking about the center's total paid hours you might be able to save some TOTAL hours by cutting a route and having the existing drivers absorb his hours at time and a half.

But at what cost? I am tired of wasting my time here and at work trying to understand this plan. Just pay me.

Of course it cannot work on every single driver.

 

[Nimnim]

Thanks for the response/slight clarification pretzel_man. I'm not a driver myself, nor do I intend to be one so I just kinda followed this thread, but numbers games like this peak my interest at times.

Knowing the plan though, I'd think i'd make more sense to run a little less "efficient" in things like SPC to ensure customers are getting a better quality service. Just because you can get a driver to deliver x number of packages in y time doesn't mean it's better than delivering x-5 packages in y+2 time if the customer that ultimately makes this business work has a greater satisfaction over a superior level of quality.

Or maybe I just live in a fantasy land where a happier customer is more likely to continue using our service and recommending it to others...

 

[NHDRVR]

If a good dispatch exists, good trace exists, and good loads then there is nothing to fix. People on here have complained about bad loops, bad / stupid dispatch, bad loads. Of course, those conditions will result in unproductive work.

All I am saying is that fixing those things can both increase SPC and reduce paid day.

BTW, poor dispatch and trace can have an enormous effect on rural routes like you describe. If a dispatch adjustment requires that much deadheading, isn't that an indication of a porr dispatch?

I never said it is easy to do, but its all part of the 360 methods. Its just back to the basics.

Our center tends to clamp down on preload issues when the sporhs and paid-day gets out of control with the drivers. I happen to agree with it since, as we all know, your day is trashed when you are spending too much time looking for stops. Everything about my day starts with the preload. I can adjust my trace on the fly, if necessary, and I can adjust my pickups since I don't have a commercial route (out in the sticks) but if I can't find a NDA that should be in my RDL section then my morning starts to fall apart. This is what separates the rural routes from the others. If I find that NDA in my 4000 section at 3 o'clock then I just added another 30 minutes and maybe 8-10 miles to my route. There's the over 10 the center didn't want and since I have my 9.5 paperwork turned in then I could gig the dispatch on that as well.

It all starts with the preload...

 

[over9five]

I have to admit that before Tie accused Hoaxster of being a "company shill" on this site, I wasn't familiar with the term.
I was able to figure it out though in context to the discussion without looking it up.
With that in mind, I find myself wondering how this accusation hasn't found it's way to Pretzel Man.
Maybe it has and I just missed it.
His writing style is both polite and disarming, all the while singleminded in it's content.
He never seems to chime in on anything but issues involving allowances, metrics, timestudies, and the like.
Does he really have no other interests or experiences within the business, or is he "on the clock"?

Everybody comes to BrownCafe for their own reasons. We have members who rarely stray from the Current Events forum. We have members who come here ONLY to post in the airlines threads.

I see P-Man as someone who has some pretty in-depth knowledge about time studies etc, and wants others to understand it. He posts about what he knows, and I appreciate his taking so much time to explain it.

I am also amazed how he takes so much flame, yet always responds with respect and professionalism.

 

[Re-Raise]

Wrong shill ... P-Man is the one that visits centers

He was talking about P-man.

 

[Re-Raise]

Okay, maybe you are perfect. Show me where I ever said drivers were clueless...

Wow this is frustrating.

Lets just say, hypothetically of course, that I don't care about the trace.

With my years of experience on my route I already make adjustments on a daily basis to run it in the most efficient way I can and in the shortest distance based on my commits and the stops I have each day.

Why don't you quit with the smoke and mirrors and man up and say what we as drivers already know.

Management has made the decision to put fewer drivers on the road and put more work on the remaining drivers.

Until you can concede this obvious point the rest of the conversation is moot.

 

[NHDRVR]

Wow this is frustrating.

Lets just say, hypothetically of course, that I don't care about the trace.

With my years of experience on my route I already make adjustments on a daily basis to run it in the most efficient way I can and in the shortest distance based on my commits and the stops I have each day.

Why don't you quit with the smoke and mirrors and man up and say what we as drivers already know.

Management has made the decision to put fewer drivers on the road and put more work on the remaining drivers.

Until you can concede this obvious point the rest of the conversation is moot.

They admit all of that in our center...

They just don't care that we have too much work sometimes...

 

[Catatonic]

Wow this is frustrating.

Lets just say, hypothetically of course, that I don't care about the trace.

With my years of experience on my route I already make adjustments on a daily basis to run it in the most efficient way I can and in the shortest distance based on my commits and the stops I have each day.

Why don't you quit with the smoke and mirrors and man up and say what we as drivers already know.

Management has made the decision to put fewer drivers on the road and put more work on the remaining drivers.

Until you can concede this obvious point the rest of the conversation is moot.

That is a separate point that I think everyone accepts as being true ... management has decided (probably on their QPR) to reduce the drivers on road.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

It seems to me that corporate needs to come up with a Management Personal Per Center (MPPC) Metric. They need raise that metric and cut a few MPPC! The same goes for IE. Actually.....just cut them completely out of the picture.

 

[pretzel_man]

I have to admit that before Tie accused Hoaxster of being a "company shill" on this site, I wasn't familiar with the term.
I was able to figure it out though in context to the discussion without looking it up.
With that in mind, I find myself wondering how this accusation hasn't found it's way to Pretzel Man.
Maybe it has and I just missed it.
His writing style is both polite and disarming, all the while singleminded in it's content.
He never seems to chime in on anything but issues involving allowances, metrics, timestudies, and the like.
Does he really have no other interests or experiences within the business, or is he "on the clock"?

Nope.... Not "on the clock".

When I'm in a center, I do the same when I work with drivers. I listen, and then respond with the facts. I make appropriate committments and ask the drivers to do the same. If I won't do something a driver asks or recommends, I tell them so.

You are right, I post more on dispatch, allowances, metrics, process, etc. I guess its because if I see an incorrect fact, I want to clarify it. That's the focus of my job.

There is a lot of BS on this board, so I don't respond to it. I read a ton more posts than what I respond to. I have written many responses out of frustration and anger and then canceled them before sending.

Someone called me a "robot". Unfortunately, that is pretty true. I do not show anger, never yell, am very patient. If a driver wants to talk for an hour with legitimate complaints (constructive criticism) I will stay and hear every word. I will fix whatever I can.

So, take this as you will. I guess this is another polite, disarming and single minded comment.

BTW, I will respond honestly to any PM as many people know. I'm better at private conversations than open ones.....

 

[Catatonic]

It seems to me that corporate needs to come up with a Management Personal Per Center (MPPC) Metric. They need raise that metric and cut a few MPPC! The same goes for IE. Actually.....just cut them completely out of the picture.

They did that a few years back.
The number of Hourlies per friend/t management staffing use to be about 7-8.
Last time I saw the numbers it was close to 14.

 

[pretzel_man]

Wow this is frustrating.

Lets just say, hypothetically of course, that I don't care about the trace.

With my years of experience on my route I already make adjustments on a daily basis to run it in the most efficient way I can and in the shortest distance based on my commits and the stops I have each day.

Why don't you quit with the smoke and mirrors and man up and say what we as drivers already know.

Management has made the decision to put fewer drivers on the road and put more work on the remaining drivers.

Until you can concede this obvious point the rest of the conversation is moot.

Yes, this is frustrating for me too....

If you are already doing everything you say AND you have a good dispatch and trace, putting more stops on you will only raise your paid day. Of course this is true.

I have yet to find a center however where this is true for the majority of drivers. If it were, people here would not be complaining about their dispatch and trace.

So, I admitted what you asked (I think).

You also need to recognize that you cannot complain about inefficient management and stupid dispatch decisions and then also complain and say that fixing those things will not reduce time.