DRA VS EFFICIENC

[DRAisawesome]

Our routes that are DRA and the couriers that have run them in stop order are horribly inefficient and hours are up. So they have gone back to their own routing. My p1 is on DRA and I do about 4-7 less stops just in p1. I do take some over if we can absorb the baseline. So just on my route it's about 10% less each day.

Ok moral to the story. FedEx will say "run it in stop order." One of two things will happen.
One. SPH will go down and they will let them. To compromise this pay increases will be taken away and benefits worsened. This is their system and will be ran.

Two. Managers will still be required to hit SPH. They will cancel most of any DRA plan. Engineer who has never run a route and local management will be at each other's throats.

Let the chaos ensue.

 

[thedownhillEXPRESS]

We have had the chaos version for about 8 months at my station.
Management refuses to run it,engineers from all over show up cocky like they are going to fix things.They then leave after a week with zero progress.Repeat steps.Like Groundhog Day.
DRA is Fedex's hope to have a dumbed down workforce.Well how's that working so far?(like Poop)
Just compensate your drivers fairly while making them think they have a future here and you'll get good people.The recent hires are all idiots and ex cons.

 

[Doc Sorting Dude]

Our DRA coordinator got buried in the desert long ago; that's the rumor going around here haven't seen him in a year.

 

[fedupped]

Seems to be the same all over. New mgrs trying to make this thing work. They realize it cant and hand the reigns back to the older couriers who have been running the show for years. Memphis will continue to sift out older mgmnt and couriers to reduce costs. They will be left with a workforce that doesn't know nor care how to run the operation. I'm a 30 year day worker. Jump into the back of the truck an leave it all behind at 4. But I have a pension. The rest of youa ll need to make a move. I have signed a card. Have you?

 

[Cactus]

At this rate, Express ain't gonna last another 5 years. This airplane may be soaring at 35,000 feet right now but it's losing engines and you know what happens after that.

 

[Route 66]

....This airplane may be soaring at 35,000 feet right now but it's losing engines and you know what happens after that.

Knowing FedEx's convoluted logic, they'd be boasting about how much fuel this would be saving.

 

[thedownhillEXPRESS]

Good thing they don't use DRA on the planes.They would likely end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

 

[DontThrowPackages]

Our routes that are DRA and the couriers that have run them in stop order are horribly inefficient and hours are up. So they have gone back to their own routing. My p1 is on DRA and I do about 4-7 less stops just in p1. I do take some over if we can absorb the baseline. So just on my route it's about 10% less each day.

Ok moral to the story. FedEx will say "run it in stop order." One of two things will happen.
One. SPH will go down and they will let them. To compromise this pay increases will be taken away and benefits worsened. This is their system and will be ran.

Two. Managers will still be required to hit SPH. They will cancel most of any DRA plan. Engineer who has never run a route and local management will be at each other's throats.

Let the chaos ensue.

So true. I know of one station that stopped running it all together and with us it's mystery meat everyday. Sometimes we run it some times no. When we do, we don't always have the staff. If an extra rte is created, we have to divide that freight up. Seems like a like of money spent on something we where already doing 2 years ago.

 

[HomeDelivery]

the only opco that this DRA crap is working decently is Home Delivery...

why? there are no P1, P2, pickup & business hour time limits to go through in their programming

eventhough on some routes i covered, the stop order doesn't make sense, they can be tweaked w/ management to "zone their service areas" to the bid driver's "area knowledge" so it can be run efficiently without wasting the driver's time on the road (remember we don't get paid by the hour)

i get a map overview printout of the day's deliveries & tweak my stop order while i sort/load the parcels into the package car if the programming sucked for that day

 

[hypo hanna]

the only opco that this DRA crap is working decently is Home Delivery...

why? there are no P1, P2, pickup & business hour time limits to go through in their programming

eventhough on some routes i covered, the stop order doesn't make sense, they can be tweaked w/ management to "zone their service areas" to the bid driver's "area knowledge" so it can be run efficiently without wasting the driver's time on the road (remember we don't get paid by the hour)

i get a map overview printout of the day's deliveries & tweak my stop order while i sort/load the parcels into the package car if the programming sucked for that day

That's the funny part. Experienced drivers who are stuck with DRA are making on road adjustments every day because the program sets the route to run inefficiently. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of DRA.

Our engineer/OSS is working his little butt off adding, subtracting and splitting loops every week and the results are the same. Hours wasted on one end and overloaded routes with late deliveries on the other. Poor little guy is starting to look frazzled.

 

[MrFedEx]

Seems to be the same all over. New mgrs trying to make this thing work. They realize it cant and hand the reigns back to the older couriers who have been running the show for years. Memphis will continue to sift out older mgmnt and couriers to reduce costs. They will be left with a workforce that doesn't know nor care how to run the operation. I'm a 30 year day worker. Jump into the back of the truck an leave it all behind at 4. But I have a pension. The rest of youa ll need to make a move. I have signed a card. Have you?

DRA has been a disaster, yet they're sticking to it for the most part. This speaks volumes about Fred's dream to be able to plug practically anyone into a truck and have DRA "take over". As you said, Memphis is doing their best to eliminate both senior couriers and long-term management, which will save them money. Overall, however, the inefficiency of DRA cannot be overcome.

We are led by morons.

If you can leave, you need to do so.

 

[!Retired!]

DRA can be fixed. Memphis just doesn't care to listen to the people that actually use it.

 

[MAKAVELI]

DRA can be fixed. Memphis just doesn't care to listen to the people that actually use it.

What does that say about Memphis?

 

[MAKAVELI]

Notice the complete silence from Dano59 on this topic? My guess is they have absolutely no clue on how to fix it.

 

[hypo hanna]

DRA can be fixed. Memphis just doesn't care to listen to the people that actually use it.

I'm not so sure. It seems like our managers and engineers have tried everything and it only gets worse. I would think there would be at least a little improvement in our numbers after all this effort.

 

[MrFedEx]

I'm not so sure. It seems like our managers and engineers have tried everything and it only gets worse. I would think there would be at least a little improvement in our numbers after all this effort.

You can't fix something that is inherently defective. A bad design or idea is just that...bad. In this case, you can't fix stupid. Dano and MT3 are living proof of the concept at-work.

 

[Code 82 Approved]

How can one expect DRA to work when they can't even get Vision to work in preload?

Example:
Load packages for "even" side of street from low to high. Load packages for "odd" side of same street from high to low on opposite side of truck.

Then load bulk stops on the floor from earliest to latest for each corresponding side.

But no, it is obviously more efficient to load 40 cases of textbooks from the front of the back wheel to the front of the truck for an early morning dock stop, and fill the aisle with blinds, rugs and fishing poles. All while leaving a p1200 top shelf full with 2 long boxes of pillow stuffing.

 

[Nolimitz]

DRA is so lame here that any bump in station vol will take it off line and we revert to SRA. There are 4 new part timers who have no clue what SRA is or how to set up a route with out maps and manifests. On Tuesday I overlapped with a newb, saw him looking lost and spinning circles around the block. On Wed DRA went down and I dropped less than 30 p2 to another newb. It took him until 16:30 to finish... We have 6 more pt new hires coming in over the next couple months. Cant wait!! Like MFE said cant fix stupid.

You can't fix something that is inherently defective. A bad design or idea is just that...bad. In this case, you can't fix stupid. Dano and MT3 are living proof of the concept at-work.

 

[prodriver]

the only opco that this DRA crap is working decently is Home Delivery...

why? there are no P1, P2, pickup & business hour time limits to go through in their programming

eventhough on some routes i covered, the stop order doesn't make sense, they can be tweaked w/ management to "zone their service areas" to the bid driver's "area knowledge" so it can be run efficiently without wasting the driver's time on the road (remember we don't get paid by the hour)

i get a map overview printout of the day's deliveries & tweak my stop order while i sort/load the parcels into the package car if the programming sucked for that day

At our terminal we call it setting up"priorities" after this is set up on a route it makes them run smooth, if they are not set up its helter skelter no rhyme or reason a lot of wasted miles and aggravation, endless time wasted in back of van looking for stops that your by but sequenced 30 stops later.

 

[DontThrowPackages]

I'm not so sure. It seems like our managers and engineers have tried everything and it only gets worse. I would think there would be at least a little improvement in our numbers after all this effort.

Like someone said, It works with Home delivery. No p1 p2. Sucks to have to break rte and driver to the total opposite end of a RTE to get an early closer then dead head all the way back to the last delivery point to start deliveries again...passing up delivery addresses on the way I might add.