Help Please... Orion Tips, Tricks and Hacks...

[barnyard]

following peak when it can't be used.

Your management team does not know how to adjust Orion if they shut it off during peak. There are sliders in the Orion console that can be adjusted to reflect the importance of staying on EDD trace. During peak, my route was set to run in close to EDD order, with smaller tweaks for efficiency.

During peak, my trace was typically over 95%, my miles were always over because I did pick ups that were not figured into the trace.

Last week, the route I was on had me running way, way, way too many stops before NDA commit. I skipped 14 resis and ran the NDA in order. I had 4 resi stops that were right next to 1 NDA that I did, saving 8 miles. At the end of the day, I finished 5 miles over, but was 91% trace, so everyone shrugged their shoulders. Was pretty much a big ole WTF to me.

We are getting close to having been on Orion for a year. Some routes run fairly well, others not so much.

 

[brown metal coffin]

I can give them 90% compliance and be 20 miles over or 70% compliance and be 20 miles under. Or anything in between. Compliance percentage is just another number that they are chasing. It doesnt mean anything.

Same for me. I give them 100% compliance but Im 6 miles over. When I come out of a neighborhood and it says my next stop is 3 miles away I have gladly complied. I know thats completely illogical but I wanted to see the look on their faces and they told me to stop running it 100%. So now my mantra has been to complete the next closest section and utilize the breaks, but scrolling up and down through the board is flat out annoying. Anyway; doing it this way I came in 3 miles under on Friday.

 

[Rack em]

The best trick is turn orion off first thing when you get edd! The first week our center got orion they would say who was a "black belt" meaning you were within 85% and met your miles for orion. I ran my route with orion off and ended up with like 93% trace and I beat my miles by 3 miles. RUNNING EDD BEAT ORION BY 3 MILES!!!

 

[burrheadd]

Sit down with a sup and look at your route. Blocked streets, one ways, construction zones, new and modified roads, even how a SNAP is placed on a road can affect your ODO. When you first get ORION nobody has really tinkered with all that. It's like when Apple tried to replace Google Maps a few years ago and driving instructions to the White House put you in the Potomac. We had a bin next to the DIAD rack labeled "fix my route" for us to put in modified pick up runs and times, preferred path to area, map issues etc. Hitting big problem areas like apartments, divided roads, parking lot paths at strip malls, roundabouts, and cul de sacs can help dramatically for your trace, miles, and backing.

 

[soberups]

I have considered following ORION just to "prove a point" but I simply do not have enough fuel. And since it has been well over a year since anyone in management has even mentioned ORION compliance to me, I just switch over to RDO as soon as I get EDD and use common sense and 29 years of experience and area knowledge to get the route done as efficiently as possible. I almost always beat the projected miles (which aren't accurate anyway) and when I don't its because I am running off misloads or taking care of other issues for them. I will be gone in a few years anyway, and at that point they will be free to address the colossal cluster-coitus that is ORION on my route.

 

[Scottyhawk]

Yeah I went trough and hit disagree with a few of the post above

Orion is a all or nothing not 85% , I am not going to keep track how many times I break or even figure if I should break

If everybody who had Orion ran it at 100 everyday then they would be forced to make it work or get rid of it , you guys who decide to help them are doing nothing but making a bad program worse

When the board shows me what percentage of Orion I am at then maybe I will start using ODO

 

[PASinterference]

The best trick is turn orion off first thing when you get edd! The first week our center got orion they would say who was a "black belt" meaning you were within 85% and met your miles for orion. I ran my route with orion off and ended up with like 93% trace and I beat my miles by 3 miles. RUNNING EDD BEAT ORION BY 3 MILES!!!

How does a lowly driver beat a billion dollar system ?

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

The only numbers that matter are 0 accidents, 0 injuries, and the earnings on your paycheck. Stop looking at compliance metric percentages!!!

 

[Grey]

The best trick is turn orion off first thing when you get edd! The first week our center got orion they would say who was a "black belt" meaning you were within 85% and met your miles for orion. I ran my route with orion off and ended up with like 93% trace and I beat my miles by 3 miles. RUNNING EDD BEAT ORION BY 3 MILES!!!

First thing I do after logging in. RDO!

 

[barnyard]

How does a lowly driver beat a billion dollar system ?

Easily.

 

[Wally]

What about just recording the actual mileage, and quit playing games with rounding up, or rounding down.

Yea, who the hell cares. Up yours management, OJS me all you want.

 

[kingOFchester]

TRICK

Follow Orion. Work will get moved off of you. I lost a section with 20+ stops since Orion. Its great. I do less physical labor, more windshield time and a better check.

Just don't get greedy. Driver in my center would only use Orion when he was heavy to put himself over 9.5. They would lighten him up, he would then follow ROD and run thru the day. They caught on and removed his Orion option.

 

[kingOFchester]

Orion is a tool not meant to be followed stop for stop. 85% trace means you can break trace 15 times and still be in compliance.

I am just a dumb truck driver. I have no clue how to calculate percentages. What I thought was 1/2 of net worth turned out to be less when the dust settled from my divorce.

Even if I could figure out percentages, I would need a UPS supplied calculator.

Even if they did supply a UPS calculator and I understood percentages, I have no idea how many stops I will end up with do to multiple office buildings and apartments on my route. So it would be impossible to know how many times I could break trace until I finished the route. At that point it would be to late to make adjustments.

Case in point, Friday computer said I would have 145 stops. That means I could break trace about 21 times. Ended up with 155 which means I could of broken trace about 23 times. Sometimes I come in under the computer's projections. Hey, look at that, I do know percentages. SSSHhhhhh

Much easier to just follow Orion and let them worry about figuring out my next direction.

Besides, I wouldn't get to wave to mrs. Smith as I drive by 3 times before making her delivery.

 

[kingOFchester]

As I said above, 85% trace compliance means you can break trace 15 times.

I guess over in the bubble every trip goes out with exactly 100 stops. Or am i missing something?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I guess over in the bubble every trip goes out with exactly 100 stops. Or am i missing something?

I made the math easy for dumb truck drivers such as yourself.

 

[kingOFchester]

One easy way to gain a mile back is to round up starting mileage during your pretrip.

For example If your starting mileage shows "36187.3" round it up to 36188.

If you are doing that, you are actually losing a mile. Try doing it on your post trip if you really care.

I always put the miles as it reads.

 

[kingOFchester]

I made the math easy for dumb truck drivers such as yourself.

We have a good number of industrial trips that do under 100 stops. Several that do 60-70 tops. You would of screwed them with your fuzzy math.

 

[FrigidFTSup]

Have to communicate the issues. From what I've read on here some places won't even try to fix your ORION, but when people come to me with issues and can explain why it's not right I will work to fix it. Even then though, it's tough to make things all perfect.

Use it as a tool. Don't follow it if it puts you in an unsafe situation. We have one driver whose ORION wants him to cross a 4 lane road like 6 times a day no matter how we set it up. He refused to do it and I 100% agree with him. He's reducing risk by not following it for those stops. Every time a higher up asks why Driver X is out of ORION compliance I explain to him he's making the safe decision by not crossing a road 6 times a day.

 

[Holydriver]

ORION...the coolest thing ever. check the computer in the morning. notice how itll show you arriving for an air stop at 1029 or so. isnt that something you want to trust? the damned system makes us break trace just by trying to cram as many grounds in with airs as possible. then, when you have to break route to get your air off in time now you have 5 ground stops in the way on your diad screen. what do you do? go back and run those or just get them in trace with the others on that street?

also, ORION will have its own idea of where you should be at a certain time. so itll be sending you to run grounds over near where one of your pick up stops are at because it thinks you are there at a certain time. well, you may be already passed that area of 20 stops away from that area. who knows? ORION certainly doesnt. as such, you are breaking trace. this is especially prevalent on a route that has a lot of apartments and strip malls. ORION sees a strip mall as one stop, not the 5 or 6 that might be in it. think of how that puts you behind schedule

also, ORION will send you down a long dead end country road, deliver one stop on it, go to another street for some deliveries, and then come back to the first road and make more stops. it akes absolutely no sense at all sometimes.

 

[barnyard]

We have one driver whose ORION wants him to cross a 4 lane road like 6 times a day no matter how we set it up.

I thought that you could make that type of road a boulevard and make each a 1 way street with no crossings.