Questions for those that HAVE EXPERIENCE with orion

[SoonerClint]

In my limited experience with orion, I am frequently backing into or nosing in a driveway to turn around. I walk across the street to deliver constantly. Package selection is crap half of the time; full truck and they want you to grab a package from the 6 or 7 section. I cannot elaborate much more as I am just 6 months into driving. In my opinoin the mileage that is saved is lost by me being out 30 min to an hour longer each day.

 

[Borderline 9.5]

I thought Orion would also combine add/cut into a more efficient trace. It does not do that either, just a mess of stops that leaves you shaking your head. Like others have said our center does not ask us to use it. There only concern right now is backing. Which I don't have a problem with since telematics is off

 

[toonertoo]

It could work in a truck you can walk in. It could work if they get all your business in the before 5 sections, and you can get to them to deliver. It does suggest that you turn around, and when you cannot your mileage will be off. It doesnt tell you per se, once you figure the system out, you will know what I mean by suggest. When they start giving you 30 40 more, and they dont give a crap if there is commercial in it, and it is up to you to fix that, it falls apart. You will see. Here we have been ordered to follow it. At first they will let you have a bad day or two, then the hammer comes down.

 

[porkwagon]

Break trace strategically. Don't try to select a package from the 8000 shelf when you're cubed out. Do your airs first along with anything you can get to without unloading or climbing. Dump your bulk and do the 1000 section. Using ORION, when you get to a stop, find the package(s) for that stop, look at your list and line up the next 5-10 and put em on the 1000 shelf. Repeat, etc.

 

[kingOFchester]

One of the many problems with Orion.
It builds the route on when it thinks you will get to each stop. It is built around certain commit times, such as pickups. Once you get EDD/Orion in the morning, Orion's schedule is in stone. As we all know, the time studies are way off, traffic is never the same, leaving the building in the morning is never the same time, wait times at stops are not accounted for, looking for packages is not accounted for and also when we take lunch. Lunch is put in for the same time everyday. I am under no obligation to take lunch at 12:00 everyday. The farther behind we fall from Orions time, the farther we are away from pickups when they are scheduled to start. This causes us to stop delivering, drive cross town to pickup, then back to where we last left off.....putting us even further behind the Orion "schedule".

The above scenario alone proves that Orion is far far far far from perfect. Until it can recalculate every few minutes based on where we are and time of day, the system will never be as efficient as a driver trying to do the right thing. Even if it could recalculate every few minutes, it will not be as good as an efficient driver. As a driver we are calling audibles 100's of times a day. I can't see Orion being able to do this.

It would be like a computer telling the football coach which play is the best play.....for the whole game.

 

[porkwagon]

I've never looked at the ORION map on the monitor at the center so I have no idea when I'm scheduled to be anywhere, or when it schedules my lunch. I just follow it by lining up my resis in the afternoon after lunch. I manage to stay off the radar, but even still, after being on for a year, I have not seen anyone in my division disciplined for not hitting the 85% mark. They just rattle off the results during the PCM along with the rest of the rhetoric.

 

[kingOFchester]

I've never looked at the ORION map on the monitor at the center so I have no idea when I'm scheduled to be anywhere, or when it schedules my lunch. I just follow it by lining up my resis in the afternoon after lunch. I manage to stay off the radar, but even still, after being on for a year, I have not seen anyone in my division disciplined for not hitting the 85% mark. They just rattle off the results during the PCM along with the rest of the rhetoric.

It can be very amusing looking at the monitor in the morning.

 

[porkwagon]

It can be very amusing looking at the monitor in the morning.

I live only three miles from work, I get up early, but I have a hard time making it there on time. Often calling from the parking lot to punch me in so I rarely have time to look at it. I'll have someone show me how to read it tomorrow. LOL

 

[By The Book]

It could work in a truck you can walk in. It could work if they get all your business in the before 5 sections, and you can get to them to deliver. It does suggest that you turn around, and when you cannot your mileage will be off. It doesnt tell you per se, once you figure the system out, you will know what I mean by suggest. When they start giving you 30 40 more, and they dont give a crap if there is commercial in it, and it is up to you to fix that, it falls apart. You will see. Here we have been ordered to follow it. At first they will let you have a bad day or two, then the hammer comes down.

It might be easier to deliver if they loaded it in Orion order. Maybe the trace percentage will go up.

 

[soberups]

I have been on it for about a year.

It works on some routes and fails miserably on others.

It does not tell you specifically where to back at each stop, but if you drive around the block instead of backing into driveways you will be over on the mileage.

The map program that the implementation team uses is not always accurate on rural routes. My ORION guy wanted me to go up a "road" that is gated and useable only in the summer by a 4 wheel drive vehicle. The detour that I must take negates the entire solution. There have also been a couple of occasions where following ORION would have literally caused me to run out of fuel. I have frequently beaten its prediction by over 30 miles simply by turning it off and using common sense.

In my center we are still expected to make service on misloads so if you catch one (I had NINE on Friday) your entire solution and mileage prediction goes out the window. If you do wind up with 4 or more misloads, your compliance metric does not even show up on the report the next day and is replaced by "DTTP" which stands for "different trip than planned". This is good because a driver who does his job and makes service on misloads wont get in trouble for compliance.

ORION would have me doing some of my pickups at 10:00 AM instead of their scheduled 3:45 PM. Our center is big on pickup compliance, so this puts me in a no-win scenario because obeying one directive (ORION compliance) will automatically cause me to disobey another one (pickup compliance). Since my customers could care less about ORION, I obey the directive that gives them a consistent pickup time each day which is arguably in the best interests of the company per art 37 of the contract.

My advice for drivers who are about to go on ORION is to keep a log in order to document any stupid, unsafe or counterproductive decisions that ORION would have you follow. When push comes to shove, the company will NOT be able to discipline a driver for failing to generate an 85% compliance metric as long as the driver can show that he/she was simply trying to make correct business decisions for the route and do the job in a manner that best represents the company's interest.

 

[The Blackadder]

Orion does not consider business or residential. It does not consider customers who need early deliveries for turnaround shipments later in the day. It does not consider when they go to lunch. It does not consider how much bulk you would have to unload to get to that Amazon box in section 6 at 9:00 am. My center requires 85%. I run 70 to 75% and they are really starting to come down on me. We must make service on packages, period! In order to do that on a heavy day, I have to turn off Orion (switch to RDO). I will have to start running Orion and bring back missed businesses at 9:00 at night. Orion will be the undoing of this company and it will be actions like this that will (maybe) make them understand. Orion is a tool that needs to be applied with logic and some plain old common sense. We are not given that option because UPS management has non of either.

I can shorten up your whole post.

Orion does not care about customer service, it only cares about miles.

 

[sortaisle]

Orion is setup by your centers management team. They take a look at how many pieces are floating around and make decisions based off of how many routes they're told to cut and milage savings. While they may raise the mileage of some routes, they will ultimately save miles by cutting routes. This does not mean your day will get faster more than likely your day will be longer since you'll have more left turns but most management teams will still keep or even lessen your planned day...and by that I mean what use to be a planned 10 hour day will suddenly turn to a planned 8.5. That's my experience with Orion, and it is totally center team dependent. Right now in our center, the flavor of the month isn't Orion but the CARE audit which is keeping damages down. Orion is still reasonably close to EDD and all of our boards still have the ODO and RDO option in so you can change the order. I'd say 90% of the drivers go back to EDD and there's no trouble from the management team. So Upstate is correct in his assessment.

 

[ArcherUTR]

I've been on ORION for about a year now. Upstate's answer to your specific questions were correct. My center's goal is 85% compliance and the manager asks that we try to make good business decisions using our experience when appropriate. If you run only airs there is no trace break. If you deliver multiple stops on a particular street even though ORION may not list it that way, there is no break in trace. If you skip stops to do later for whatever reason and drop down the list, there is no break in trace. However, if you drop down your list and work up the screen, each stop will be a break in trace. I typically have about 200 stops daily so if I break trace 30 times I will still hit 85%. I keep my screen RDO most of the day and most days am at 90% without doing much differently than I ever did. If I try to follow it and do the dumb things it lists, it takes longer and does not save any miles. My miles have been between 45-55 per day and this has not changed. My area is tight and I am close to the barn.

So are you claiming you can run your NDA in any order...or only any order if you only run NDA?

Just Curious.

Why is the OP freaking out?

For me ORION is not the demigod that people make it out to be. It's actually kind of impressive in that when I was in college The Traveling Salesman Problem was intractable, meaning add just a few more data points and computers take years to come up with what it takes a human just a few minutes. So over the past 10 years or so Google and a lot of other companies have come up with some pretty cool tricks.

UPS's problem is they suck and we don't drive magical U-Turn trucks. The real world is constantly changing. They used to harp on safety and service, right now it is mileage to satisfy their charts for corporate profits. My center, because we are still newly ORION, raised the bar to 95%. This only increases miles and raises OT.

 

[ArcherUTR]

I have reduced my daily miles by about 10 per day, not necessarily because I follow ORION, but because I am much more aware of reducing my miles.

 

[By The Book]

So are you claiming you can run your NDA in any order...or only any order if you only run NDA?

Just Curious.

Why is the OP freaking out?

For me ORION is not the demigod that people make it out to be. It's actually kind of impressive in that when I was in college The Traveling Salesman Problem was intractable, meaning add just a few more data points and computers take years to come up with what it takes a human just a few minutes. So over the past 10 years or so Google and a lot of other companies have come up with some pretty cool tricks.

UPS's problem is they suck and we don't drive magical U-Turn trucks. The real world is constantly changing. They used to harp and on safety and service, right now it is mileage to satisfy they charts for corporate profits. My center, because we are still newly ORION, raised the bar to 95%. This only increases miles and raises OT.

Hopefully in your center it's an average of 95% of all routes, not 95% on each route. That way the 99% ers can get your % up.

 

[ArcherUTR]

There are no 99%'s

 

[selfcancelsignal]

I sure as shizz hope they have all these FUBAR bugs worked out before the center I work at gets ORION. Haven't heard a word as to when we may be getting it. Do remember hearing all about it at driving school last year. Has anyone heard a target date as to when the co. wants it implemented nationwide? Get the bugs out of it first please.


Sent while driving from my flip phone via T9 word.

 

[The Other Side]

I have no experience with it, but some of the stuff ive read on here on here is interesting, however, alot of it is opinion. Some factual answers from those on it please. 1 Does it tell you to back into driveways to turn around? 2 Are all misloads now sheeted as missed? 3 Are the days of going off area to get 10 stops or someones pickup pieces to get them in over?

First, take the opinions of drivers who ACTUALLY have to use Orion. Anyone else is simply giving you the B.S. that they hear from the managers in their centers.

Take DAVE for instance. He has ZERO experience with ORION in a practical working environment, yet he will comment on it as if he knows what the flock he is talking about.

ORION doesnt "TELL" you where to turn in a literal sense, it simply takes you in one direction, usually skipping over stops, then shows you the next stop which is BEHIND you some distance away requiring you to make a judgement how to go in the opposite direction.

Now, its up to you. The engineer while on car may "ask" you to flip a b*tch on a residential street and expect you to perform the same moves while unsupervised, or you might travel a VERY short distance to make a Uturn at the end of the street and go the other way, only having to turn back around and go back to the point where you turned around in the first place.

You will find that your backing events will double if not triple if you are a driver in a high density residential area.

Sometimes, you are placed into a situation where "going around the block" isnt possible because of the layout of the neighborhood. This "forces" you to Y back or even 5 point turn in the middle of a residential street in order to go in the opposite direction.

Now, some of the yahoos who defend ORION will say : "you are allowed 10 breaks per hundred" using ORION so simply ignore it when it asks you to turn and go in the opposite direction. The problem then becomes, what if you exceed those 10 breaks and now you have to answer to the center manager why you broke trace more than allowed.

Either way you are screwed. At this point, UPS is not disciplining for ORION yet, as they are waiting until all units are online and they can begin the discipline process.

This is why we are trying to SPEAK loudly about ORIONS mistakes in hopes of getting someones attention at UPS CORPORATE to take another look at this P.O.S.

All misloads are NOT sheeted as missed and you will either run them off or pass them to a relay point. In fact, UPS management is asking us NOT to sheet them as anything and return them to the hub for a "FALSE SCAN" with a B.S. code, like "left in building", "not ready 1", "Label torn off" and such.

Also, dont listen to the baloney of "the days of helping out are over". The Center will only move your start time forward 30 to 40 minutes, and give all drivers 25 to 35 more stops and CUT ROUTES.

You may go OVER miles having to help out, but the mileage reduction from removing cars gives them a cushion they can use to HIDE your results.

Every center is moving start times forward and cutting routes. Remember, for every driver that gets 25 stops, for every 6 drivers is ONE car removed from the road.

This has NOTHING to do with ORIONS ability to manage anything, allthough its the excuse they are running with when they show a reduction in mileage.

I showed this before, but Ill show it again.

IN my center, they cut 9 cars and gave all of us more work along with a moved up start time of 30 minutes.(even though we still cant leave until after 9am because preload is jacked up)

3 of those care travel 20 miles out and 20 miles back each day. So, thats 120 miles a day off the road. Thats 600 miles a week or 2400 miles a month off the road (assumed saved)

6 of the cars travel 18 miles out and 18 miles back in. So, thats 216 miles a day or 1080 miles a week or 4320 a month.

Now, add those two together.

2400
4320
6720 miles technically taken off the road by cutting cars.

Now, we have 89 drivers. Our daily average miles per car is 158 miles over planned miles each driver.

Times 5 days =790 miles a week OVER ORION planned miles. times 4 = 3160 miles OVER ORIONS plan per month.

Now, the company saved 6720 by cutting routes but LOST 3160 by implementing ORION.

Whats the difference????

3560 miles is what the company uses to show that its saving money, but in reality, ORION isnt saving them anything.

Cutting cars is saving miles.

But, there is a giant DOWNSIDE. OVERTIME.

The routes are taking longer to complete and hours are skyrocketing. Production is reducing. Spohr is dropping. Pickups are getting missed. NDA is being failed. Packages are being service failed.

You see, nobody at UPS thinks anything through completely anymore.

Any YAHOO can walk into corporate and talk them into anything. As long as it costs millions of dollars to implement, UPS will be on board.

You will learn to hate the system as well.

Your days will get longer. You will be placed into situations where you will be in a "forced error" situation and have to explain yourself.

Dont expect your management team or division manager to do anything about it either. They are merely passengers on a sinking ship of fools.

You will complain, they will tell you to shut it off, then someone with a higher paygrade will ask them why your not in compliance, and you will be forced to turn it back on and screw up your day.

Believe me, it doesnt work.

TOS.

 

[ArcherUTR]

I think I've heard that there are 4 phases. This is Phase I.

 

[hellfire]

I have been on it for about a year.

It works on some routes and fails miserably on others.

It does not tell you specifically where to back at each stop, but if you drive around the block instead of backing into driveways you will be over on the mileage.

The map program that the implementation team uses is not always accurate on rural routes. My ORION guy wanted me to go up a "road" that is gated and useable only in the summer by a 4 wheel drive vehicle. The detour that I must take negates the entire solution. There have also been a couple of occasions where following ORION would have literally caused me to run out of fuel. I have frequently beaten its prediction by over 30 miles simply by turning it off and using common sense.

In my center we are still expected to make service on misloads so if you catch one (I had NINE on Friday) your entire solution and mileage prediction goes out the window. If you do wind up with 4 or more misloads, your compliance metric does not even show up on the report the next day and is replaced by "DTTP" which stands for "different trip than planned". This is good because a driver who does his job and makes service on misloads wont get in trouble for compliance.

ORION would have me doing some of my pickups at 10:00 AM instead of their scheduled 3:45 PM. Our center is big on pickup compliance, so this puts me in a no-win scenario because obeying one directive (ORION compliance) will automatically cause me to disobey another one (pickup compliance). Since my customers could care less about ORION, I obey the directive that gives them a consistent pickup time each day which is arguably in the best interests of the company per art 37 of the contract.

My advice for drivers who are about to go on ORION is to keep a log in order to document any stupid, unsafe or counterproductive decisions that ORION would have you follow. When push comes to shove, the company will NOT be able to discipline a driver for failing to generate an 85% compliance metric as long as the driver can show that he/she was simply trying to make correct business decisions for the route and do the job in a manner that best represents the company's interest.

Thank you