Is this a unfair time study?

[Griff]

I don't run all day, and I have never skipped a lunch.

You are lying. Unless the driver you replaced was 60 years old, there's no scenario where that much work could be added. I don't care if it's the laziest driver at UPS, 40-65 extra stops is at the very least 2hrs more work (11.5).

 

[1989]

You are lying. Unless the driver you replaced was 60 years old, there's no scenario where that much work could be added. I don't care if it's the laziest driver at UPS, 40-65 extra stops is at the very least 2hrs more work (11.5).

I would have 130 stops done at about 3:00. Usually with a 1/2 hour lunch.

 

[Griff]

I would have 130 stops done at about 3:00. Usually with a 1/2 hour lunch.

So the truth starts to emerge, taking half your lunch.

 

[1989]

So the truth starts to emerge, taking half your lunch.

I worked in a building that only takes out the time you put in your board. So it doesn't matter if I took an hour lunch or a 1 minute lunch. It never affected the numbers.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

I don't know what being a part-time supervisor, has to do with this. I was one for three years, now I've been driving for 7 years full time, and will never be in management again
If you feel our work ethic is a lot higher than the "average worker" , its prob. true

But to even think that there aren't any lazy-ass drivers who slow down purposely, you'd be ridiculous

It's always the same damn people you get messaged to take work off. It came to a point with me that I won't help anyone anymore.

I come to work, do what's on my truck, and go home

The center managers that I have had know I don't friend around out there, so they don't bother me

 

[Captain America]

P.S. 10/16 is "Boss Day". I have purchased a bottle of KY to give to my dispatch sup. I'm going to tell him that if he's going to tear me a new one and rape me up the a-hole, the least he could do is use some lube...

You have to come to work pre-lubed, its the only way, UPS won't supply. We probably should have tried to get the lube in this round of negotiations, but I'm sure the Co. doesen't see lack of lube as a problem since they are all so small.

 

[tourists24]

maybe Im missing something. if you are following the methods, taking your lunch, and are running close to scratch; what exactly is the problem?

 

[jake_1996]

This is a good question. Many things affect planned time; however, one thing that absolutely doesn't is the driver on a route. I did a quick "back of the napkin" calculation using 18 MPH overall and 0.025 hrs/stop for delivery and 0.02 hrs/stop for PU and the standard package allowances for Del and PU and came up with 10.86 planned hours for your day. Since there are other things that go into planned time (start work, finish work, CODs Del Confirmation, etc.), at first glance it looks like your day is a little low. I have seen, though, entire centers running over 20 SPORH, so it is not ridiculous that your particular area plans out at over 20. Here are some things that make stop allowances lower than normal: lots of dock deliveries; lots of multi-delivery carries (more than one delivery on a single carry); lots of high density driver release residentials...

Here is my experience with time studies, and I've told operations management this many times... About 10% are "tight" and about 10% are "loose". The 80% in the middle are just fine. Check with the swing drivers (cover drivers?) in your center and they will tell you exactly which ones are which. Your only issue is whether a travel variance was improperly applied in one of the baseline units you are delivering. Ask your supervisor to print out a planned day for you on the day you are interested in and see if any of the delivery or PU units are extremely low in hours per stop (below 0.02 for delivery or 0.017 for PU). (As an on-road sup and an IE sup/mgr I never had any issues with reviewing a driver's planned day worksheet with him. If your on-car sup is uncomfortable with this review, ask that your package IE rep conduct the review with you... It's part of their job...) If this is the case, ask him/her to check with the IE department to see if any large negative travel variances had been applied in these units. It is a definite no-no to apply travel variances in baseline units, so this may help.

If you are interested and if your sup is agreeable, ask them to print out a planned day for the area with you and another driver on a different day and compare the calculations. The only differences should be in travel, which is pretty complicated, but in no way related to the driver... Jake

 

[upsgrunt]

This is a good question. Many things affect planned time; however, one thing that absolutely doesn't is the driver on a route. I did a quick "back of the napkin" calculation using 18 MPH overall and 0.025 hrs/stop for delivery and 0.02 hrs/stop for PU and the standard package allowances for Del and PU and came up with 10.86 planned hours for your day. Since there are other things that go into planned time (start work, finish work, CODs Del Confirmation, etc.), at first glance it looks like your day is a little low. I have seen, though, entire centers running over 20 SPORH, so it is not ridiculous that your particular area plans out at over 20. Here are some things that make stop allowances lower than normal: lots of dock deliveries; lots of multi-delivery carries (more than one delivery on a single carry); lots of high density driver release residentials...

Here is my experience with time studies, and I've told operations management this many times... About 10% are "tight" and about 10% are "loose". The 80% in the middle are just fine. Check with the swing drivers (cover drivers?) in your center and they will tell you exactly which ones are which. Your only issue is whether a travel variance was improperly applied in one of the baseline units you are delivering. Ask your supervisor to print out a planned day for you on the day you are interested in and see if any of the delivery or PU units are extremely low in hours per stop (below 0.02 for delivery or 0.017 for PU). (As an on-road sup and an IE sup/mgr I never had any issues with reviewing a driver's planned day worksheet with him. If your on-car sup is uncomfortable with this review, ask that your package IE rep conduct the review with you... It's part of their job...) If this is the case, ask him/her to check with the IE department to see if any large negative travel variances had been applied in these units. It is a definite no-no to apply travel variances in baseline units, so this may help.

If you are interested and if your sup is agreeable, ask them to print out a planned day for the area with you and another driver on a different day and compare the calculations. The only differences should be in travel, which is pretty complicated, but in no way related to the driver... Jake

Wow Jake, that is a ton of information that I'm not sure I can absorb at once. Makes me feel like I'm in a statistics class again. I don't know if you're in IE or what, but I'm impressed that you at least sound like you know what you are talking about. We need you in our center Monday please. At least keep posting here- it is refreshing to get new viewpoints on here.

 

[Dump and Run]

Hey leddy I have been a coverage driver running everything under the sun for 8 years and have been wondering the same things myself. One day a 160 stops will be a 9 hour day on paper and I'm in and off the clock in 8 hrs. The next day I'll have 180 stops and not dispatch (7.92) and yet it takes me 9 hours. It's pretty sad that the harded one works the more work one is given instead of praise and thanks and then the person who purposely drags their feet gets work taken off of them. I too like to get in, get it done and go home to my family. Keep doing it safely and on those days you don't have anything to do after work dial it back a bit and say hello to the customers and pet a dog or two.

 

[jake_1996]

I've been in many centers explaining the IE work measurement. My feeling is that it's very fair overall, but there are definitely bad studies out there (no more than about 10%). These will be mainly baseline routes, malls or convention centers. Anything where the dispatch is not consistent or the standard contact allowances don't apply. Otherwise, every area is basically the same. I can't tell you the number of times I have had a driver tell me, "Now this stop is unique," only to see the same stop I've seen a dozen times.

There is (or at least used to be) a method to request a maintenance study, but these need a division managers approval. It's best to figure out which area's are tight and try to avoid them... Jake

 

[Griff]

I've been in many centers explaining the IE work measurement. My feeling is that it's very fair overall, but there are definitely bad studies out there (no more than about 10%). These will be mainly baseline routes, malls or convention centers. Anything where the dispatch is not consistent or the standard contact allowances don't apply. Otherwise, every area is basically the same. I can't tell you the number of times I have had a driver tell me, "Now this stop is unique," only to see the same stop I've seen a dozen times.

There is (or at least used to be) a method to request a maintenance study, but these need a division managers approval. It's best to figure out which area's are tight and try to avoid them... Jake

I don't know where you are from Jake, possibly the Moon, but here our timestudies are 20 years old. Management freely tells us this and in the same breath wants to know why I am 50 clicks over. The entire system is a joke, thus why I pay no attention to it anymore. I run scratch everyday, just not in the blurry eyes of UPS.

P.S. -- I'm a swing driver. I go from making 200 clicks of bonus on 1 route to 200 clicks overallowed on another, same work ethic, same methods. Your 80% number is far too high for the amount of timestudies that are accurate, at least from what I see in my building.

 

[jake_1996]

You probably have a good point. Back when I was in IE it was every bonus area every three years and every non-bonus area every 5 years. My 80% is based on a time study that is about 3-5 years current. Areas don't change much over time unless there is some major development (mall, convention center). Since there are separate allowances for commercial and residential, if there is growth in one or the other, it really doesn't matter. Growth benefits the driver because of shorter travel between stops and more multiple stop carries. In Philly (probably non-bonus) some areas may have not been studied since early 90's. Highly unlikely though. In these centers in my old district we instructed the center managers to use best demonstrated performance, not over/under... I do understand your frustration though, and would like to see UPS move back to more accurate ways to estimate workloads. I do see this as a potential way of reducing over 9.5s while satisfying UPS's need to prevent dispatching under 8.0. I don't want to see it favor either one, just make is as fair and accurate as possible. Jake

 

[local804]

I worked in a building that only takes out the time you put in your board. So it doesn't matter if I took an hour lunch or a 1 minute lunch. It never affected the numbers.

lol

 

[LeddySS98]

Paid 1067
Work 1067
Am/pd 16
DRIV S/L 06

ON ROAD 1035
PM TIME 10
TOTL PLAN 1032
OVR/UND 35

SPORH 20.48
MLS 60
PKGS 431
PREM PKG 64
TOTAL 197
NET C/C 1
S/A C/C 1
PD 2

PICKUP TOTAL 41
STOPS 15

 

[bad company]

"My feeling is that it's very fair overall, but there are definitely bad studies out there (no more than about 10%). These will be mainly baseline routes, malls or convention centers. Anything where the dispatch is not consistent or the standard contact allowances don't apply."

Can you elaborate on this a little more? If it is common knowledge that studies done on baselines, malls, and convention centers are so bad, why does management continue to slam these routes with unrealistic and unattainable goals?

And are there any tips you can share with me to help me maximize the gains in my time study. I am supposed to have one within the next week. Thanks.

 

[tourists24]

I'll add a little more fun to the pile. Ive had a mall route for several years now. I get amused that when I run the route 95% in trace I tend to run an hour under. On most days, however, I run the route which makes it easiest and quickest to get done fastest (which is not necessarily in trace depending on where the heaviest stops are). On these days I must be a real slacker cause I tend to go 2hrs or more over.

Even if you say these are acknowledged problem areas, it doesnt stop management from demanding you bring down your overallowed. Until you IE experts get a few years experience on the road, dont tell the rest of us what is fair.

 

[jake_1996]

Nice argument for running your route in trace . Seriously, Mall routes are the worst because of overallowed in contact (not allowances)... Do you wait in line with the customers to get a signature? I time studied a guy who did that... Sorry, no extra time... "Attract Attention! Get signature first!" "Train your Customers!" Number One method!!! I had an attractive female driver who ran an hour under who had an area which NO swing driver wanted because they could not scatch it... Guess what... No one wanted to help them ("Encourage a helping hand")! Front door delivery or receiving room? Drivers take you around the whole mall concourse with a 4-wheel cart when you can knock on the rear door and drop three packages on the inside in 40 seconds... Get smart! If you are unclear ask your center manager to review the 340 methods with you. The 340 refers to the number of the IE standard practice manual, not the number of the methods... (Preload is the 230 manual, etc...) There are only about 20 or 30 very key methods, but if you get them down, you are golden. Chief among them is do not re-sort your car at every third stop... Jake

 

[jake_1996]

I hope this gets to you in time... There is very little you can do to affect your time study. Most of the allowances are determined by a count of the activities that you perform, and then multiplied by standard allowances. For example, you may stop your car and exit 130 times and you will get 0.067 hours each time you do it (this is not the actual allowance, since I forget it...). You can not stop your car randomly and get extra time... The TS observer will disallow it! The TS observer has a wide latitude for determining what you should have done, so it may be useful to question him/her in situations where you are unclear of the methods. Ask them especially if they re-wrote a stop ("Did you re-write that stop? Why?). This is a very innocuous question for a TS observer and should not be in any way controversial (the following discussion may be!). These folks are supposed to be the Methods experts in the District (and they were in mine, absolutely, although, that was 15 years ago... Don't worry... Time study has not changed, although the observers have).

Let's wrap this up... I always told a center's driver to make ALL their alternate deliveries (make sure you know the approved methods on this) , and that is pretty much the only thing that made a difference... Don't worry, though, if you have a competent IE department, they will build in the extra time. If you lose big-time, it will probably be because of a large negative travel variance. Each district is required to keep a travel variance log, so you should be able to track it down... Jake

 

[jake_1996]

It's not that the allowances on malls and convention centers are "bad", it's just that it is difficult to adhere to the methods for contact. Many mistakenly think it is the interior walks, but it is almost always the contact... Same with military bases... (Who has to sign? Where is the Gunney?) I've been the TS coordinator on major Convention Center studies and the overallowed is always in contact. If you have any disagreements on walks, ask your TS coordinator if they did an analysis of any inside walk variances. This only applies if you had many (20+) walks of 500 feet or more... Otherwise, this is somewhat dangerous, since most (All?) drivers are underallowed in the walk allowance. (Note: Ask them to only look at "5" walks, which is the longest walk classifications... (Hopefully) They will know what you mean... Say something like, "Did you look at my inside five walks? This area has way more than normal. Maybe I should get a walk variance for that."). A note of caution... Walk variances are extremely rare (only travel variances are routinely approved), but it's worth a try. Jake