Have you heard of the Orion System, what do you know?

[pretzel_man]

In addition to cleaning up EDD, the mileage gains attributed to ORION come from management no longer honoring delivery commit times. You see, ORION has to cut miles because the guys at the top say it will. So abandoning commitments to our long term customers will not get in the way. Service, safety (injuries and accidents), and damages are not important because ORION is someone's favorite brainchild.

Are these customers already traced in the AM? If so, they will still be serviced in the AM???

The method for as long as I have been around is that commercial deliveries (most of them) are traced in the AM part of the day. This did NOT and has NEVER meant morning delivery, just in the earlier part of the day.....

By the methods, an AM delivery can move from driver to driver, but remain in the AM part of the trace.

So, where are these customers traced?

 

[pretzel_man]

Pman, When you say that the 3,000 drivers who are on ORION are saving time and miles...I believe you.

What I dont believe...is that those savings have anything to do with whether or not the drivers happen to be following ORION to a certain percentage.

Here is what I mean. ORION is being implemented in my center as we speak. A huge part of the implementation process has been correcting the many flaws in our existing PAS/EDD system. The implementation team has been "cleaning up" problems in our loops and unit boundaries that have been creating chronic dispatch issues in our center for several years now. I was originally told that my area would not be re-looped, but that decision has been reversed and the implementation team is hard at work fixing it right now so that I can go live on ORION by fall. Pickup routes are being adjusted and re-assigned, and systematic attention is being given to reducing misloads by improving preload job setup and making adjustments to assignments where needed. Parking positions are also being adjusted, with the goal being to keep adjacent routes parked next to one another rather than on completely different belts as has frequently been the case. This alone will cause a huge decrease in the amount of time and miles that we waste running off misloads, since they will usually be from an adacent route instead of one that delivers to a town 40 miles away.

My point to all of this....is that it is false logic for you to claim that ORION is saving time and miles for 3000 drivers by giving those drivers stop-for-stop delivery instructions to follow based upon GPS coordinates. The savings in time and miles are the result of the improvements that are being made and the problems that are being corrected as part of the implementation process itself.

An accurate way to determine the real effectiveness of ORION...would be to implement it at a center and have the drivers follow it at 85% or better for one week. Then on the following week....instruct those same drivers to turn ORION off and rely instead on area knowledge to determine the optimum delivery order. All other factors (volume, weather, staffing etc.) being equal, I'd bet every dollar I have that the drivers would make better and more cost-effective decisions that ORION would ever be capable of. Something tells me that this sort of open-minded, apples-to-apples comparison of ORION versus area knowledge has never and will never be done by the company; the ugly truth would be that the drivers will make better decisions than ORION 99% of the time and this would force UPS to be honest about what a waste of money the ORION system itself actually is.

Sober:

There is A LOT of logic to what you say, and thank you for believing me that savings have been seen. First, for the record, I didn't say that every one of the 3,000 drivers got savings. I've said that it will NOT work for every driver.

I've heard about ORION for many years and have many presentations in that time. Now, with the deployment, I have been much more involved and have learnd much, much more.

In general centers (not necessarily drivers) that follow the ORION trace more get more gains. I looked at the reports recently and that has been consistent. I did start thinking (as you did) that maybe that is just a coincidence because with a better trace, drivers will follow it more anyway.

I ended up thinking that it didn't really matter. If ORION is the catalyst to do what you and others have complained about for so long then that's a good thing.

In addition, there are many, many examples of ORION pointing out problems that was not known before ORION.

The bottom line for me was that the savings were real and consistent across centers and this this will provide a path for enabling more services in the future for UPS. I'm pleased with what I have seen.

One last thing.... From the reports I saw, your area of the country has done worse than others with ORION. I'm not sure why that is? Maybe the original DPS / PAS was done poorly? Maybe your area was more efficent that others before? Maybe there is an unusual operating condition there?

Best of luck.

 

[SignificantOwner]

Go tell them to use cells and geo areas. That is the way to correct that.

If they don't put in the cells and geo areas, it won't work. See what they say about that.

Trained personnel with enough time...

​This work is new. Will a position will be added to perform this ongoing maintenance, or is there a help desk to call to get it done?

 

[brownIEman]

Trained personnel with enough time...

​This work is new. Will a position will be added to perform this ongoing maintenance, or is there a help desk to call to get it done?

That would be a resounding negative. This work will fall to the PDS and the on road sups. Mostly the on roads.

 

[soberups]

Trained personnel with enough time...

​This work is new. Will a position will be added to perform this ongoing maintenance, or is there a help desk to call to get it done?

I am confident that any problems with ORION will be handled with the same prompt efficiency that flawed timestudies and PAS/EDD issues have been dealt with.

 

[soberups]

I ended up thinking that it didn't really matter. If ORION is the catalyst to do what you and others have complained about for so long then that's a good thing.

P-man,

It really does matter, because in the final analysis the majority of the money that is being spent on all the ORION hardware and GPS plotting is being wasted. Most of the loop detail "cleanup" that your high-priced ORION team has been doing as part of the implementation process consists of nothing more than basic corrections to PAS/EDD that we drivers have been suggesting for years now. My loop for example has a combined 95 years of area knowledge among its 5 drivers; instead of spending millions of dollars on some high-tech GPS system to tell us which stop to deliver next, you could pay a part-time data entry clerk to make a few basic corrections to our exisiting PAS/EDD and get the same or better results in terms of efficiency and reduced miles. What UPS is doing with ORION is pretty much akin to paying an electrician $10,000 to go up on a ladder and replace a burned out light bulb. Lots of noise, lots of fancy high tech, lots of new and meaningless metrics to measure and chase, but no real improvement in terms of value to the customer.

 

[40andOut]

Are these customers already traced in the AM? If so, they will still be serviced in the AM???

The method for as long as I have been around is that commercial deliveries (most of them) are traced in the AM part of the day. This did NOT and has NEVER meant morning delivery, just in the earlier part of the day.....

By the methods, an AM delivery can move from driver to driver, but remain in the AM part of the trace.

So, where are these customers traced?

These customers were traced in the AM prior to ORION. When the ORION team came in they tossed out the trace that was used previously on my route. Before and during the ride I let the ORION team know which business had verbal time commits from us, and who closed early. They refused to enter any delivery windows because the resulting ORION Delivery Order projected miles far above my normal miles. As a result, each day is now looped completely different. My miles are way up (5-40 miles a day more), my customers are literally swearing at me, and I am stumbling over bulk floor stops to pull residential stops from the back shelves every day. I am also breaking off to get to business before they close every day, which was never a problem before. ORION cannot figure out how to loop my route to avoid breaking off because the ORION team refuses to enter known close times (some as early as 3 PM), but I still must avoid missed stops, so I break off.

​You see this has been the UPS way since our stock went public. The edict comes down from corporate that a certain program has to be implemented at 85% or above. So the managers sacrifice all common sense to make the number. I really miss the days (now far removed) when managers actually cared what was best for the company rather than making the flavor of the month number work. I had a great deal of respect for those manager of old. They were tough but they at least did not ask you to miss-sheet missed stops, deliver damages etc. etc.

 

[soberups]

These customers were traced in the AM prior to ORION. When the ORION team came in they tossed out the trace that was used previously on my route. Before and during the ride I let the ORION team know which business had verbal time commits from us, and who closed early. They refused to enter any delivery windows because the resulting ORION Delivery Order projected miles far above my normal miles. As a result, each day is now looped completely different. My miles are way up (5-40 miles a day more), my customers are literally swearing at me, and I am stumbling over bulk floor stops to pull residential stops from the back shelves every day. I am also breaking off to get to business before they close every day, which was never a problem before. ORION cannot figure out how to loop my route to avoid breaking off because the ORION team refuses to enter known close times (some as early as 3 PM), but I still must avoid missed stops, so I break off.

​You see this has been the UPS way since our stock went public. The edict comes down from corporate that a certain program has to be implemented at 85% or above. So the managers sacrifice all common sense to make the number. I really miss the days (now far removed) when managers actually cared what was best for the company rather than making the flavor of the month number work. I had a great deal of respect for those manager of old. They were tough but they at least did not ask you to miss-sheet missed stops, deliver damages etc. etc.

Sounds to me like you need to give your management team some "tough love."

Quit breaking trace to avoid missed stops. Shut your brain off, quit thinking, and follow ORION 100% regardless of the consequences. If they want compliance, then shove that compliance 3 feet up their ass. If you show up at a business after closing time, sheet the packages as "missed" and bring them back. Repeat as necessary. Try to get the cell phone number of your ORION implementation manager...or your Center Manager...and if your customers complain give them the phone number and encourage them to speak directly to the source of the problem. Instead of risking injury by stumbling over bulk stops in order to reach the one package ORION is instructing you to deliver...unload the entire bulk stop onto the ground to get it out of your way and then re-load it back into the car and proceed on to your next ORION-mandated stop. Repeat as necessary. The brutal reality of todays UPS is that complaining to your management team about a problem is a complete and total waste of time. The only way you can force a management person to deal with a problem is to find a way to make them look bad on a report. Looking bad on a report is sort of like a cattle prod; you just have to be willing to keep turning the voltage up until your management team will do anything to make the pain stop.

 

[SignificantOwner]

That would be a resounding negative. This work will fall to the PDS and the on road sups. Mostly the on roads.

Houston, we have a problem!

 

[Harry Manback]

Trained personnel with enough time...

​This work is new. Will a position will be added to perform this ongoing maintenance, or is there a help desk to call to get it done?

Would you consider a contracted outsider "Trained Personnel?" I can't/won't blame these folks for undertaking a job to support their families. I also will NEVER be confident they could tell me how to run my route more efficiently. It only took me a decade and a half to get where I'm at. Take some schmuck off the street, run him through some DIAD style training exercises and all of a sudden he's an expert? I could watch a few shows on the food network but, that wouldn't qualify me to instruct Wolfgang Puck on preparation of Smoked Salmon Pizza.

Garbage in, garbage out.
​

 

[teamsturz]

SIMPLY, ANOTHER Harassment tool for the Co.

 

[soberups]

Would you consider a contracted outsider "Trained Personnel?" I can't/won't blame these folks for undertaking a job to support their families. I also will NEVER be confident they could tell me how to run my route more efficiently. It only took me a decade and a half to get where I'm at. Take some schmuck off the street, run him through some DIAD style training exercises and all of a sudden he's an expert? I could watch a few shows on the food network but, that wouldn't qualify me to instruct Wolfgang Puck on preparation of Smoked Salmon Pizza.

Garbage in, garbage out.
​

Our building has an upstairs conference room that the ORION team has taken over while they are here implementing the system. One morning about a month ago I stuck my head in there and very politely asked the brain trust how ORION would account for the fact that, because there are two mornings per week when I have to take an empty pup trailer to a nursery out on my extended delivery area, I am therefore unable to make any deliveries prior to dropping the trailer off unless that particular stop has a large enough parking area for me to safely perform a U-turn with my trailer still hooked up. For several moments there was nothing but dead silence in that room while they nervously looked around at one another; finally, one of them asked me....."umm, whats a pup trailer?"

I havent bothered going back up there since.

 

[40andOut]

Oppresive
Robots
Institutionalizing
Ordering
Nonsensicalness

 

[hyena]

I am looking for any information on this topic.

Just what hall said" GPS on steroids"....If he knew more he'd tell you. Dont believe me take the ta for example.Just go to sleep, your current leadership is looking out for you and everything will be A okay.

 

[SignificantOwner]

Our building has an upstairs conference room that the ORION team has taken over while they are here implementing the system. One morning about a month ago I stuck my head in there and very politely asked the brain trust how ORION would account for the fact that, because there are two mornings per week when I have to take an empty pup trailer to a nursery out on my extended delivery area, I am therefore unable to make any deliveries prior to dropping the trailer off unless that particular stop has a large enough parking area for me to safely perform a U-turn with my trailer still hooked up. For several moments there was nothing but dead silence in that room while they nervously looked around at one another; finally, one of them asked me....."umm, whats a pup trailer?"

I havent bothered going back up there since.

It sounded like the system is a couple years from handling this situation efficiently. There are too many situations like this that ORION can't handle because it doesn't update if things don't go exactly according to plan. They said that future versions would recalculate the route if you got ahead, behind, or pulled off plan (the plan being the order originally laid out by ORION) for whatever reason.

 

[oldngray]

My opinion is the goal of ORION is to dumb down package driver's jobs so they can hire people off the street and just send them out delivering. For now they will use the knowledge and experience of older package drivers to debug ORION, and when the system mostly works they can try to replace the drivers who fixed it and got it working as it was supposed to from the start with new hires.

 

[soberups]

It sounded like the system is a couple years from handling this situation efficiently. There are too many situations like this that ORION can't handle because it doesn't update if things don't go exactly according to plan. They said that future versions would recalculate the route if you got ahead, behind, or pulled off plan (the plan being the order originally laid out by ORION) for whatever reason.

We will waste far more time and miles trying to generate the demanded 85% compliance metric than we will ever save due to the "wisdom" of the all-knowing GPS.

There are 5 drivers in my loop with a combined 95 years of area knowledge between us. Only an idiot would believe that a computer program using GPS algorithms is going to make better decisions than we are capable of. The entire concept is a farce.

 

[serenity now]

We will waste far more time and miles trying to generate the demanded 85% compliance metric than we will ever save due to the "wisdom" of the all-knowing GPS.

There are 5 drivers in my loop with a combined 95 years of area knowledge between us. Only an idiot would believe that a computer program using GPS algorithms is going to make better decisions than we are capable of. The entire concept is a farce.

no argument on that point

 

[40andOut]

Brown Down: UPS Drivers Vs. The UPS Algorithm
UPS’s new algorithm can plot routes more efficiently than drivers. Just try convincing the drivers of that.
LINK:
Brown Down: UPS Drivers Vs. The UPS Algorithm | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Also (LINK):
UPS Drivers vs Algorithms & The Traveling Salesman Problem

Read the above articles.
Notice that the "try to beat the projected ORION miles" ploy is just that, a ploy to challenge your pride in order to try to cut your miles. Notice the attitude...we really put one over on the driver, but it was ORION that cut the miles...

Levis recalls one driver who normally did his route in 150 miles. ORION predicted he could do it in 140. One day, the driver came back from his route and said, “I told you, your system’s no good.” ORION’s prediction was wrong, he said--he had managed to do the route in 135, not 140. “To this day, he doesn’t really recognize that ORION is what caused this,” says Levis. “He just views it as another input to use together with his intuition.”

I assume that ORION will then collect the data on the sort mileage day and try to integrate the gains in future days.

I either ignore ORION and usually beat projected miles by 20+ (my pre-ORION average) OR follow ORION almost 100% and usually end up 15 miles over projected; a 35 mile swing. If they want 85% compliance they will get a huge amount of miles.

BTW they will probably classify your route using 3 alternatives, this can make a huge impact, especially on service, ask the ORION guy how yours is classified ...
1 Regular
2 Base line
3 Traveling salesman

For an explanation of what mathematicians are referring to when they speak about a "Traveling Salesman" problem read this...
Flying Math: Bees Solve Traveling Salesman Problem | Wired Science | Wired.com

So I guess we are the bee brains;
The question is, is ORION smart enough to recognize when a trial is an error or a success? Is it's artificial intelligence program sophisticated, elegant, and adaptable enough to choose the best route each day based on the data collected from us bees? Will it recognize that a particular road is much slower at 3 PM (but not at 2:48PM) when school gets out etc.etc.? How much weight will it give an occasional slower drive time between 2 stops when it does not know the reason for the variation?
For a fascinating and insightful documentary on what ORION eventually portends, watch this:
The Smartest Machine on Earth...NOVA
Video: Smartest Machine on Earth | Watch NOVA Online | PBS Video

 

[soberups]

What it all boils down to is that we are going to have 3 seperate groups of people chasing 3 distinct...and in many cases mutually exclusive...sets of metrics.

The engineers who are installing ORION want to save miles. They dont care about service or safety or common sense; they just want the total number of miles shown on the daily report to decrease so that they can justify the money that is being spent on paying them to install the system. They will have us fighting traffic and wading thru 15 red lights on a surface street in order to shave .4 of a mile off of the route because saving miles is the only metric that they are being judged by.

The on road and center management teams want to generate a compliance metric. The edict to follow ORION is coming down from Corporate; it cannot be questioned or challenged or disputed, only blindly obeyed. We are UPS and when our management is instructed to to chase a metric they get downright stupid about it and they will by God chase it off of a cliff like lemmings if they are told to. Whether any miles or time actually gets saved in the process is not relevant because these metrics are no longer the flavor of the week. ORION compliance is the flavor of the week and the demanded metric will be generated by any means necessary regardless of cost, regardless of its impact on safety or service, and regardless of whether it makes any sense or not.

The drivers want to deliver the route as quickly and efficiently as possible while still working safely and providing the customers with good service. We are ultimately accountable for the decisions we make out there because we are the ones who get hurt by working unsafely and we are the ones who have to face the customers when the service we provide is not meeting the needs of those customers. We dont have the luxury of being able to hide behind a desk or a stack of compliance reports when the sh%t hits the fan. The buck stops with us. For on road managegement or the ORION implementation team, failure is a perfectly acceptable option because as long as the demanded metric has been generated, the responsibility for that failure can simply be assigned to a different part of the operation. For the drivers, failure is not acceptable because we are the ones who are stuck out in the real world and who ultimately have to find a way to salvage a failed plan at 7:30 or 8:00 at night while the ORION implementation teams are at home having dinner with their families. We are behind the wheel when the load hits the road and we are the ones left holding the bag when the "plan" fails.