More I.E. stupidity!

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
I was told by my supervisor that the rule was in fact to keep the center's SPORH up to IE's expectations.

A driver on TAW who spend 4 hrs on road delivering 4 stops shows up on the WOR as having delivered 1 SPORH. To a center manager who is already on "probation" for failing to make his numbers, this could mean the difference between a job or a spot in the unemployment line.

The reality of the situation in terms of actual productivity means nothing. In order to survive as a UPS manager you must find a way to spoon-feed your immediate superior whatever statistic happens to be the current flavor of the week. Common sense is irrelevant.

Sober:

Something does not sound right, regardless of what he said.

They are measured by NDPPH (in addition to SPORH). Its NDPPH that's tied to the balanced scorecard.

Even under the scenario you painted, the SPORH for the center would have improved if the TAW delieverd the package, right?

P-Man
 

Dragon

Package Center Manager
brownrodster your center team is incorrect. The allowance is still there or should be still there. I have not seen anything from Corp. IE that they have taken this allowance away. Its still in mine You do not enter it under Special A,B,C but in the over 70 screen (you may know this, just reminding you)
 

toonertoo

Most Awesome Dog
Staff member
Did you ask anyone why they have that rule? You are assuming its because of SPORH. SPORH is no longer the main center measure. Its NDPPH. Using the TAW driver in the manner you mention would raise NDPPH because it would have reduced the hours.

I have an opinion on why they have the rule. I'd be interested in what they say.

P-Man
And what on Gods green earth is NDPPH
 

TheDick

Well-Known Member
I am on a fairly large center (60+ drivers) so at any given time there is usually at least one driver in the office on TAW (temporary alternate work--"light duty"). These are usually people who are taken off car for a few days to heal minor injuries such as sprained ankles etc. Its a win-win because they dont have to lose money being out on comp, and the company keeps its insurance rates down because these guys dont show as a "lost time" injury.

Often time these drivers can still drive, they are just on a weight or hours restriction. This gives them the ability to perform useful work such as shuttling misloads, late air, or running empty vehicles out to routes with containment issues.

One of the truly stupid rules coming down from IE is that these guys cannot ever deliver a misload themselves, instead they must meet up with the driver and give him the package...even if that driver must then break trace for 10 miles to go back and deliver it.

Why? Because a TAW driver who delivers one stop will show up on the WOR and drag the centers SPORH average down. So according to IE "logic", its better for a driver on a route to lose 20 minutes breaking trace than it is for a TAW driver to deliver the package for him.

I was on TAW once and we had late air from the airport. I had a NDA letter for a title company and was instructed to go to the title company and wait there to give it to the driver who was clear at the other end of his route 15 miles away.

These were title documents. I was there; I had the letter; I had a DIAD; I had every ability to make service on that package. The customer came out and asked me for it, she said her buyers were inside waiting to sign. I called the center and asked for permission to deliver the letter...and was told "no."

We kept 3 customers at a title company waiting 45 minutes for their important title documents until the regular driver arrived...all so some dipsh%t bean-counter from IE could take credit for looking better "on paper" by keeping the centers SPORH average higher by some insignificant margin.

The 45 minutes that the regular driver spent shagging the misload that I could have delivered for him meant that he needed help in the afternon from 2 other drivers, who had to break trace and add miles to their own routes. All 3 drivers were over 9.5, the customer was pissed that they had to wait for their title documents, and we owed them a refund due to the letter being late...but, by golly, at least we made that number look better!!!

It doesnt have to be this way. If there was anyone in IE with half a brain, they would allow each center to code TAW drivers in such a manner that any deliveries they did (subject to a limit of, say, 4 or 5 stops) would not count against the centers SPORH.

If you have a TAW driver and he is already being paid, already driving a vehicle, and is capable of delivering the work within his medical restrictions... there is no logical reason why he shouldnt be able to do so.

Of course, we are talking about IE...where logic is an oxymoron anyway.

I dont get why u had a DIAD in the first place if ur on TAW anyways, and restrictions keep u from del pkgs. My bldg- u wouldnt be allowed near a DIAD.
You'd be "The Ghost Car" :surprised:
We have now entered the "Twilight Zone" :shuriken:
 

Dragon

Package Center Manager
And what on Gods green earth is NDPPH!!

More pieces + less driver's delivering said pcs = net delivered pieces per hour = $$ in the bank for the day.
 

Dragon

Package Center Manager
And what on Gods green earth is NDPPH

Drivers divided by delivery pcs for the center = Net delivered piece per hour = $$ money in the bank for the day. Goal is less drivers delivering more pcs...
 

helenofcalifornia

Well-Known Member
Yeah, The Dick is right. We have a phantom truck that goes out every day. And the drivers that are TAW in our place, don't get a board, just get all their delivery stops pre-recorded and then go out and deliver bulk stops or NDA. Great for the the working drivers SPOHR, and good for the management team who won't have the misses, lates or have to put another truck on the road.

Not so good for any ethical issues. Totally understandable with all the pressure management is under. "Don't do as I do, just do as I say."
 

Pkgrunner

Till I Collapse
This reminds me of an old story:

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture in Texas when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced
toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany...

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS- SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're an Industrial Engineer from a U.S. Corporation", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter.

This is a herd of sheep. .....

Now give me back my dog.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Sober:

Something does not sound right, regardless of what he said.

They are measured by NDPPH (in addition to SPORH). Its NDPPH that's tied to the balanced scorecard.

Even under the scenario you painted, the SPORH for the center would have improved if the TAW delieverd the package, right?

P-Man

Wrong.

If I am on TAW and use a DIAD to deliver one stop, I must input a "left building" and "return to building" time. I then show up on the WOR as having run a route. If I delivered 4 stops an had 4 on road hours, I show up as producing 1 SPORH for the entire day.

Assume a center dispatches 50 routes, with an average 120 stops apiece for a total of 6000 stops. Assume each route averages 9 hours on road for a total of 450 hours.That center will have an average SPORH of 13.333.

Now assume you throw an additional TAW "route" into that equation that spends 4 on-rd hours to deliver a total of 4 stops. Instead of a 13.333 SPORH average, the center is now down to an average of 13.224.

In the mind of the IE bean counter, a TAW "ghost driver" who shuttles packages without ever entering the work into a DIAD has no effect on the center's SPORH. The numbers look better; and the numbers will always be more important than the reality.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
I dont get why u had a DIAD in the first place if ur on TAW anyways, and restrictions keep u from del pkgs. My bldg- u wouldnt be allowed near a DIAD.
You'd be "The Ghost Car" :surprised:
We have now entered the "Twilight Zone" :shuriken:

The last time I was on TAW, it was with a minor back strain. I was cleared to drive, and I had a 10 lb weight restriction. Therefore, I could have easily delivered a letter or a small pkg without violating my restriction.
 
:rofl::rofl::rofl:
This reminds me of an old story:

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture in Texas when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced
toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany...

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS- SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're an Industrial Engineer from a U.S. Corporation", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter.

This is a herd of sheep. .....

Now give me back my dog.
 

Mapp

Choo Choo
Since UPS is running out of money you would think they would be judged on cost above all the stupid performance metrics.
 

JustTired

free at last.......
Since UPS is running out of money you would think they would be judged on cost above all the stupid performance metrics.

1. I don't think UPS is running out of money.

2. While in reality there is a correlation between cost and "performance metrics", I'm going to go out on a limb and state that (in my opinion) the correlation doesn't seem to exist in this organization.

It never ceases to amaze me the length some will go to look good on paper. Never mind how stupid or nonsensical (not to mention costly) it is. As I stated in another thread.....if you want to control cost, you have to "get the big picture". That axiom applies to more than just driving.
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
Wrong.

If I am on TAW and use a DIAD to deliver one stop, I must input a "left building" and "return to building" time. I then show up on the WOR as having run a route. If I delivered 4 stops an had 4 on road hours, I show up as producing 1 SPORH for the entire day.

Assume a center dispatches 50 routes, with an average 120 stops apiece for a total of 6000 stops. Assume each route averages 9 hours on road for a total of 450 hours.That center will have an average SPORH of 13.333.

Now assume you throw an additional TAW "route" into that equation that spends 4 on-rd hours to deliver a total of 4 stops. Instead of a 13.333 SPORH average, the center is now down to an average of 13.224.

In the mind of the IE bean counter, a TAW "ghost driver" who shuttles packages without ever entering the work into a DIAD has no effect on the center's SPORH. The numbers look better; and the numbers will always be more important than the reality.

Sober:

While your math works, it does not match the situaion that you started this thread with.

When you started this thread, you said that by letting the TAW driver delivery packages, it would reduce the time and miles of multiple drivers.

You did not add that into the equation you just posted. Did the additional four on road hours of the TAW worker reduce 4 hours from the other 60 drivers?

If that answer is yes, (and you implied so in your original post), then the center SPORH would have been improved. So would the NDPPH (Net Delivered Packages per Hour).

P-Man
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
1. I don't think UPS is running out of money.

2. While in reality there is a correlation between cost and "performance metrics", I'm going to go out on a limb and state that (in my opinion) the correlation doesn't seem to exist in this organization.

It never ceases to amaze me the length some will go to look good on paper. Never mind how stupid or nonsensical (not to mention costly) it is. As I stated in another thread.....if you want to control cost, you have to "get the big picture". That axiom applies to more than just driving.

Actually, that is not a true statement.

You are correct that there is not a performance metric that covers all the bases. There is a flaw with every one of them. This is why there are so many.

In package, there is SPORH, Ov/Un, NDPPH, Miles, etc. Also, lots of ways to slice and dice them. (Stops per mile, Pieces per stop, etc.)

There is also a balanced scorecard that takes into account many more elements and consolidates them. Balanced scorecard is the "big picture" element.

If SPORH, Ov/Un, NDPPH, and Miles, all got worse, I there will be a correlation to business cost.

P-Man
 
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