I want to live in I.E. world

tieguy

Banned
That being said, do you feel that Casey would run IE the same way the shareholders do? Do you feel that modern IE and the shareholders have the same consideration for the fine job we do, that you do and Jim Casey did?

I don't think casey would like much about this new public ups.
 

tieguy

Banned
And, I'm always pretty skeptical of anyone who says the company wouldn't exist without them, especially when they work behind a desk.

Hopefully some day you'll have the chance run your own business. At that point I would love to be there when you're securing financing and you tell the bank manager the money is in good hands because the guy running the company is a smart fella.

Until then this conversation is a waste of time.
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
My center manager is bright enough not to use 100 drivers when he only needs 30. More importantly, my center manager knows better than anyone in IE how many drivers he needs, any day, every day. He doesn't need some guy who never delivered a package in his life telling him how to run his day to day operations. Sorry, tie guy, that you don't have that kind of confidence in center managers you know.

So let me get this straight...

your center manager knows a way to put out a better plan that is currently being run. He / she can reduce UPS' cost by doing what he/she thinks. What happened?

Did I.E. say that they refused to put out a cheaper plan?

How did it happen that there was a proposal for a way to reduce cost, and it was turned down?

P-Man
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
You can argue with the standards theirselves but the IE folks are a necesaray evil in running a succesfull business.

Jim casey was a believer in work measurement and work standards. His bringing that into his business model is the reason you and I have a job with UPS today.

My wife is the HR and finance manager for a manufacturing company. Her job is similar in some respects to that of a UPS center manager.

Her company manufactures dental components (suction tubes) on an assembly line. Like UPS, they do work measurements to develop a time study for how long it should take an employee to assemble each item.

Unlike UPS, the process for developing this measurement is fair, realistic and straightforward; the manager for the assembly line sits down with a stopwatch, and assembles the item himself. Whatever time it takes him to do it...is the "standard" for that item.

A new employee is trained by this manager, and the expected level of production is demonstrated by that manager.


Contrast this with the UPS "timestudy", in which an unaccountable person with no knowledge of the area and no real experience as a driver creates a "standard" that, no matter how inaccurate, will never be corrected.

This allowance is chiseled in stone. It cant be disputed, it cant be adjusted, it cant be verified. Even if every single manager in the building agrees that it is wrong....they wont fix it. Ever.

Its tough to place any faith in a system that purports to be fair...when company policy absolutely refuses to correct that system when it isnt fair.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Hopefully some day you'll have the chance run your own business. At that point I would love to be there when you're securing financing and you tell the bank manager the money is in good hands because the guy running the company is a smart fella.

Until then this conversation is a waste of time.

Your frequent contributions to this thread would seem to indicate that you have plenty of time to "waste"....
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
And why is he bright enough to do so. because he has work measurement to help him make that decision.

You're center manager as bright as he may be would not have a job because UPS would not exist without work measurement and peformance standards.

As much as we all complain about IE this company would not exist without their doing what they do. Businesses that do not engage in work measurement and the development of performance standards do not last very long.

We absolutely need work measurements, and we absolutely need an IE department.

We need those measurements to be accurate, and we need an IE department that helps operations to be productive.

Right now, we have neither.
 

JustTired

free at last.......
We absolutely need work measurements, and we absolutely need an IE department.

We need those measurements to be accurate, and we need an IE department that helps operations to be productive.

Right now, we have neither.

I would agree with the above statement.

Let's look at an example of what I think has happened:

Before the allowance was altered for the use of the diad and then the implementation of PAS/EDD, let's say the majority of drivers were running scratch (give or take). Now, should there have been a correction for the implementation of the above? Of course. But I think IE was a little over-optimistic in the time-savings of these implementations.

I'm guessing that the thought was that.....given a few months, the drivers would adapt to these new standards, up their game, and ultimately be running scratch again. The problem being that the majority that were running scratch before were already performing at max capacity. Most likely, they were performing far better than the old studies would have expected.

Now, everyone is left running well overallowed and are under constant scrutiny. That is why (in my opinion) the company is going away from time standards to the SPORH and demonstrated performance. It's evidently easier to find something else to pick on the drivers for.... rather than to reevaluate and fix the time allowances.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
Another option, although it goes against our ingrained instinct as hustling hurriers, is to consider how often this will repeat itself at this location. Like Tonner said, once in ten years? I usually have found if you can get through to them before you leave that UPS won't let you wait, after you have given them ample time (5 min max?), you will not likely have to deal with the same customer & situation again anytime soon. If you can't communicate this, you might as well consider that you will have to deal with them on their terms next time. It's a tough call I admit, but I have customers that are slower than that, that insist on using qwikbooks on their computer and looking up po's and the whole nine yards, and they are shippers as well that you are just stuck waiting. Like they they say, we get paid by the hour. That's why cod's are expensive.


Here's a thought--if you know that this COD customers is slow, why not give them a call with the COD and PO information so that the checks will (hopefully) be ready when you make the delivery? I have this one stop which gets multiple CODs and I will write down the COD information, hand it to her, complete the rest of the stops on that part of the street, and then go back to her and she will have all of the checks ready. Takes less than 30 seconds and saves me 5 minutes.

Yes, we do get paid by the hour, but there is nothing wrong with trying to use that time more efficiently.
 
My wife is the HR and finance manager for a manufacturing company. Her job is similar in some respects to that of a UPS center manager.

Her company manufactures dental components (suction tubes) on an assembly line. Like UPS, they do work measurements to develop a time study for how long it should take an employee to assemble each item.

Unlike UPS, the process for developing this measurement is fair, realistic and straightforward; the manager for the assembly line sits down with a stopwatch, and assembles the item himself. Whatever time it takes him to do it...is the "standard" for that item.

A new employee is trained by this manager, and the expected level of production is demonstrated by that manager.


Contrast this with the UPS "timestudy", in which an unaccountable person with no knowledge of the area and no real experience as a driver creates a "standard" that, no matter how inaccurate, will never be corrected.

This allowance is chiseled in stone. It cant be disputed, it cant be adjusted, it cant be verified. Even if every single manager in the building agrees that it is wrong....they wont fix it. Ever.

Its tough to place any faith in a system that purports to be fair...when company policy absolutely refuses to correct that system when it isnt fair.

Sober, if I understand you correctly, the standard is set by a manager who has done the job and the expected level of production is demonstrated by the manager. Correct? So, if your manager demonstrated your job to you and....completed it in less time than you...you agree you should be held to that standard? Is this not true?:happy2:
 
I'm a little surprised that not that much has changed over time when it comes to driver reaction to time studies. I invisioned something else happening. Perhaps the comments are not representative of the entire system.
 

tieguy

Banned
My wife is the HR and finance manager for a manufacturing company. Her job is similar in some respects to that of a UPS center manager.

Her company manufactures dental components (suction tubes) on an assembly line. Like UPS, they do work measurements to develop a time study for how long it should take an employee to assemble each item.

Unlike UPS, the process for developing this measurement is fair, realistic and straightforward; the manager for the assembly line sits down with a stopwatch, and assembles the item himself. Whatever time it takes him to do it...is the "standard" for that item.

A new employee is trained by this manager, and the expected level of production is demonstrated by that manager.


Contrast this with the UPS "timestudy", in which an unaccountable person with no knowledge of the area and no real experience as a driver creates a "standard" that, no matter how inaccurate, will never be corrected.

This allowance is chiseled in stone. It cant be disputed, it cant be adjusted, it cant be verified. Even if every single manager in the building agrees that it is wrong....they wont fix it. Ever.

Its tough to place any faith in a system that purports to be fair...when company policy absolutely refuses to correct that system when it isnt fair.

You're trying to make differnet arguments here. We don't make dental products. The conditions for the manufacture of dental productt are much more consistent and repetitive then delivering packages to different addresses.

The manager also trains and demonstrates at ups.

the time study is not used to hold you accountable. Thus if you don't scratch today you will not be fired today.

Other then those points I guess I would ask you to post the history of your wifes dental company and their results so we can get a true comparison of this perfect company.
 

Momo

Member
Okay....

How about the Institute for Industrial Engineering
How about the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science
How about the countless companies that have benchmarked UPS' engineering group to see how to improve theirs.
How about Thomas Friedman in his Chapter on UPS in the book "The world is Flat"

In addition, Under Industrial Engineering is Plant Engineering and Automotive Engineering. P.E. built Worldport which has been deemed a marvel.

Am I brainwashed or are all these sources? Or maybe you are biased.

P-Man

P-Man, I think, no, I know we could use Big Brother Brown's IE dept over at our Freight side. :whiteflag:

Not to mention a healthy dose of the mindset that seems to permeate the overall culture of package. :smart:
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Sober, if I understand you correctly, the standard is set by a manager who has done the job and the expected level of production is demonstrated by the manager. Correct? So, if your manager demonstrated your job to you and....completed it in less time than you...you agree you should be held to that standard? Is this not true?:happy2:

For the most part, yes....subject to the contract language which requires that the age and physical condition of the employee be taken into account.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
You're trying to make differnet arguments here. We don't make dental products. The conditions for the manufacture of dental productt are much more consistent and repetitive then delivering packages to different addresses.

The manager also trains and demonstrates at ups.


An allowance for an assembly line with few or no variables will always be far more accurate than an allowance for a UPS driving job where conditions change daily. It is absolutely understandable that not all UPS time studies are 100% correct.

What is not understandable...is UPS's total refusal to ever correct a study that is demonstrably and irrefutably flawed...even when the flaw is so extreme that it leads to chronic dispatch and service issues with the route.

The allowance is a square peg, the reality is a round hole, and the only tool that management has to solve the probem they have created is a hammer.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
the time study is not used to hold you accountable. Thus if you don't scratch today you will not be fired today.

Incorrect.

It might seem that way from behind a desk, but for those of us who do this job in the real world, the bullsh&t stops when the load hits the road.

The timestudy is used to hold us accountable, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasnt been on the front lines for so long that their memory is starting to fade.


We are safe from being fired for failure to make scratch only because we have contract language to that effect....and I can tell you there are more than a few Operations managers who would give their left nut for that kind of protection.
 

PobreCarlos

Well-Known Member
soberups;

Actually, the elemental allowances UPS uses were developed in exactly - albeit going one step further - the same way as your dental components friends used...the difference being that, instead of just timing one manager with a stopwatch, UPS timed literally scores (hundreds!) of actual employees (drivers, in the driver standards instance) performing an elemental action (i.e. - opening the bulkhead door, securing the seat belt, etc., etc.) and amalgamated them when called for; the on-road time-study observer simply counts the INSTANCES of those elements, and the time allowance (which, in most cases, have not changed in decades, simply because the elemental motions involved haven't changed either) for each instance is multiplied by the number of instances to develop the "allowed" time. Need to keep in mind that, to do a driver "time study", an observer doesn't even need a stopwatch (time board, whatever); it's only there to compare the actual time taken to what the "allowed" time is.

That said, the "allowed" time of the day of the study, from my experience, is remarkably accurate; most knowledgeable observers can go back (or at least they used to be able to!) and point out exactly where and how the driver lost and/or gained "time" compared to "allowed". Granted, when developed allowances (stop, travel, etc) are combined with multiple drivers in a unit, they can vary a bit. And, of course, the developed allowances are based on an average knowledgeable/skilled driver under average (not ideal, but not whacked-out, either) conditions.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that the way your dentistry friends perform their time study would be way too unsophisticated to deal with the conditions of UPS's work environment...unless the company (and its employees) would be willing to bear the expenses (and discomfort) of having a time study observer bird-dogging every employee every day.
 

tieguy

Banned
What is not understandable...is UPS's total refusal to ever correct a study that is demonstrably and irrefutably flawed...even when the flaw is so extreme that it leads to chronic dispatch and service issues with the route.

I understand your frustration with the measurement process but I don't think the timestudy is a priority. The basic concept is if your a buck over today can we do something other then another timestudy to get you .75 tommorrow.
 

tieguy

Banned
Incorrect.

It might seem that way from behind a desk, but for those of us who do this job in the real world, the bullsh&t stops when the load hits the road.

The timestudy is used to hold us accountable, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasnt been on the front lines for so long that their memory is starting to fade.


We are safe from being fired for failure to make scratch only because we have contract language to that effect....and I can tell you there are more than a few Operations managers who would give their left nut for that kind of protection.

I've not seen it so much as a general driver performance tool. What generally carries more weight is how you do on the route compared to other drivers who have had it and how you do when you have a sup ride with you.

You realize there is another variable to this argument. There are some routes that become more productive as your stop denisty increases.
 

NHDRVR

Well-Known Member
I understand your frustration with the measurement process but I don't think the timestudy is a priority. The basic concept is if your a buck over today can we do something other then another timestudy to get you .75 tommorrow.

I agree that timestudys shouldn't be a priority but it is humorous to see the OR's and 90% of the drivers aren't doing their routes fast enough??
Really?? Almost every run is paid over??

This isn't a case of the driver not doing his/her job properly or stealing time. It is a simple flaw in the system. One, might I add, that never seems to be addressed.

At least tease us a bit and fix some of the allowances so they are actual and not fabricated. Not one of the 3 mall runs in our center can be scratch. It's the numbers, not the drivers.
 
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