How hard is it to learn a rural route?

[Cementups]

Learn what? Orion is a piece of program. It cant do anything useful

I run Orion 95% daily and punch with never more than 8.5 hours. So what am I doing wrong?My average work week has been 42 hours.

Orion works IF you and your Orion/management team work together tweak it and make it work.

 

[Dr.Brownz]

Paranoia it will destroy ya.

I know Orion is . That's why I don't turn it off. I'm no longer paid to think for them. So I dont

Not paranoia just being aware of what is out there.


People told me I was crazy when |I said the NSA is collecting our phone records and doing meta data analysis. Then once snowden released all that info suddenly I'm being called an idiot and "its so obvious they do that" Just sayin...

 

[Dr.Brownz]

I run Orion 95% daily and punch with never more than 8.5 hours. So what am I doing wrong?My average work week has been 42 hours.

Orion works IF you and your Orion/management team work together tweak it and make it work.

LOL

So the program can't figure out the way to run the route most efficiently, you have to tell it how to do it? Yeah sounds great.

 

[Cementups]

LOL

So the program can't figure out the way to run the route most efficiently, you have to tell it how to do it? Yeah sounds great.

No, for instance on my route sometimes it wanted me to do a main street from high to low (I only deli er the odd side). Well unfortunately this main street is also a highly traveled state highway which I was not about to be crossing several times a day by foot. So my Orion guy was able to assign this street to be delivered low to high only to avoid any further issues. Little things like that can make a huge difference.

 

[Dr.Brownz]

No, for instance on my route sometimes it wanted me to do a main street from high to low (I only deli er the odd side). Well unfortunately this main street is also a highly traveled state highway which I was not about to be crossing several times a day by foot. So my Orion guy was able to assign this street to be delivered low to high only to avoid any further issues. Little things like that can make a huge difference.

How did that help you? You know to deliver it so you dont cross the road.

 

[joeboodog]

Laminated map + dry erase marker. Easy Peasy.



I personally wouldn't call 100+ stops rural though.

Anymore? Yep.

 

[barnyard]

How did that help you? You know to deliver it so you dont cross the road.

Now the Orion plan reflects that.

There are a lot of tricks that can be used to make orion run a route well. Every now and then, it hiccups on something and area knowledge trumps it.

 

[Cementups]

@barnyard thank you for answering for me.

 

[wayfair]

@barnyard thank you for answering for me.

for a day...

 

[Cementups]

not sure what that means @Dr.Brown , but ok.

 

[wayfair]

not sure what that means @Dr.Brown , but ok.

The first day of the week, orion wants you to run it one way... tomorrow, totally different trace. Wednesday, you gotta total different route because of ad/splits... total cluster

 

[barnyard]

The route that I was on last week has road construction and the road is closed. It is entered into the Orion plan and it was easy to tell that Orion knew about the road closure Mon-Thurs. Friday, I had an NDA about 5 miles past the road construction. Orion wanted me to run the air, then go back to a resi on the other side of the road construction, then go back to a business, going around the road construction again. This is a rural route, so going around a closed road is a 2 mile detour, each way.

I skipped that resi until after my afternoon pick up at the same business. Orion had me delivering 3 other resi stops in the afternoon that were all less than 1 mile from the stop I skipped in the AM. Skipping that stop until the afternoon saved me 8 miles.

The resi stop that I skipped was a section 1 stop and the others that I did in the afternoon were section 7. So, I can sort of see that it wanted to get a section 1 stop done early, except the day before, it had me skip a section 1 business that had 4 NDA savers and according to the plan, deliver them at 16:15 (the business closes at 1600, sometimes 1530.)

It was a pretty easy decision to add 2 miles to that start of my day and get rid of the 4-47 lb savers and prevent an expensive service failure.

So many times, Orion has me doing things that I thought of in the past, but was not really sure that it saved miles (maybe it is only saving a quarter mile, who knows) and then the very next day, it will have me doing something out of the blue stupid that a 1st year driver could see is a waste of miles.

I don't get it.

 

[barnyard]

Another example from the same route last week.

2 afternoon pickups, both get NDA, savers and ground every day. A couple of the days, Orion separated the NDA, savers and ground into 3 stops. The NDA and savers were both scheduled to be run in the morning, the ground was scheduled with their pick up. Both are bulk stops and everything is all loaded into one big pile.

In both instances, the pick ups are done after the receiving staff goes home.

Nice plan orion.

 

[Cementups]

The first day of the week, orion wants you to run it one way... tomorrow, totally different trace. Wednesday, you gotta total different route because of ad/splits... total cluster

Like I said, you can fix that. As long as you have a willing driver and a willing Orion person/dispatcher/supervisor, you can set it to run generally the same way.

My route is pretty much locked to run the same way every day. The first couple days it was not. Then the Orion guy rode with me and saw how jacked up it was and made the changes that were necessary. Now I run my air with a few ground run in my air trace to eliminate me having to go back to those places and then I go back to my baseline and start from the beginning. Everyday, same way.

 

[wayfair]

Like I said, you can fix that. As long as you have a willing driver and a willing Orion person/dispatcher/supervisor, you can set it to run generally the same way.

My dispatcher told me that my solution is always jacked because of the add/cuts.

then the effer wants to put 60 stops is section 7 and 40 in section 8....

good luck finding those pkgs!

 

[By The Book]

My dispatcher told me that my solution is always jacked because of the add/cuts.

then the effer wants to put 60 stops is section 7 and 40 in section 8....

good luck finding those pkgs!

On the busy highway high to low thing and not crossing the road for safety. After the driver took the time to have his dispatcher fix this he now delivers it out the right side(only right turns,much faster,safer). Every day will be a different solution/plan because of where your stops are for the day...it kinda has to. At least they're putting those splits in the back of the truck not up front.

 

[Rainman]

Not paranoia just being aware of what is out there.


People told me I was crazy when |I said the NSA is collecting our phone records and doing meta data analysis. Then once snowden released all that info suddenly I'm being called an idiot and "its so obvious they do that" Just sayin...

Anyone who actually trusts the government is naive at best. The government wants control of the citizens, and doesn't care how they go about it, legal or not.

 

[soberups]

Orion works IF you and your Orion/management team work together tweak it and make it work.

When management demands that I follow ORION, what they are telling me is that after 29 years I am no longer competent or trustworthy enough to decide what my next stop should be.

If that is the case, then by definition I am also not competent or trustworthy enough to help them fix the system that decides what my next stop should be.

If they are so effing smart, let THEM fix it. I didnt ask for it, I dont need it, and I'm not going to use it.

 

[By The Book]

When management demands that I follow ORION, what they are telling me is that after 29 years I am no longer competent or trustworthy enough to decide what my next stop should be.

If that is the case, then by definition I am also not competent or trustworthy enough to help them fix the system that decides what my next stop should be.

If they are so effing smart, let THEM fix it. I didnt ask for it, I dont need it, and I'm not going to use it.

I try not to get too worked up about which delivery stop is next. I follow it, break for service and cash the checks. I've got enough things to worry about and taking a stand on following it or not is one I think is fruitless. If you are meeting their % and they stay off your back, do the service stuff how you do it. I do however do my pickups how I choose and will continue to do so until they say I can't. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

 

[El Correcto]

They always tell me to take home my delivery papers and write down how the route should run. I always save the papers as proof their route is messed up and don't help them fix it. You want my opinion or input pay me, I'm not in high school and I'm not doing homework for ya.