It seems like once every 1 or 2 years I stumble across your site and read the comments and suffer through the drivers complaints with them. I was one of the lucky IE guys mentioned in your website countless times. I started with PAS in 1999 and have helped implement over 500 drivers and countless hours to get them ready.

        In our district we spent months prior to implementing getting the drivers involved. The problem in getting the drivers involved sometime meant that they didn’t want to be involved or that they only wanted to isolate their route and not think about how their route impacted other routes.

        Our last building is hitting it’s 1 year anniversary and everyday I hear comments that resemble what I read on your site.

        The biggest misconception is that the system dispatches your route or that no human is involved. That is simply not true.

        These answers don’t fix the problem, but are the most common answers to your posted complaints:

        1. Territory – when we started the implementation in this last building, drivers believed that their current territory had borders, it didn’t. Apex drivers had crossed over boundaries and actually took the Apex work from 3 different loops. Base line cars that had the business work stayed in that work and additional routes were created between the baseline and Apex routes

        2. Add/Cuts – are just a continuation of a loop in trace. A loop is traced from the baseline out to the apex and back to the baseline.
The work is divided up with am work (out) and pm work (back)
  a.  The system doesn’t do add/cuts, only the PDS or designated management should be doing add/cuts. A PDS can use a 5 or 10 or 15 stop, pre-selected add/cut that the system helps create. If your having problems in your center with add/cuts, it is your PDS
  b.   If you are the A driver and you exceed your plan day, work is pulled from the either the start or end of your route. Work pulled from the start of your route will be placed at the end of the “B” drivers am work, work pulled from the end of your route will be placed at the beginning of the “B” drivers pm work
  c.   If this is not true in your case you need to speak with your PDS

        3. EDD is just the loop placed and viewed in order in your DIAD. In the old days, trace was a concern but wasn’t as easily reported because you could only tell a driver what their results were, not where they broke trace.
  a.   Trace is important on several levels:
i.    When the cover driver delivers the route the same way the bid driver delivers it, he/she will be delivering to the consignee in roughly the same time period. (understanding that a cover driver will deliver exactly as the bid driver on the route on a daily basis)
ii.    With the advances in technology, electronic notifications can be sent to the consignee as you arrive
iii.   All knowledge based deliveries I read about, leaving at side door or on window etc.. should be entered as a CPAD note or alert. This way when you key or scan that package it will alert or “note” to the driver with special delivery and pickup options. (this can also be de-activated if it is the bid driver and only alert a cover driver)

        4. The issue with Mis-Loads:
  a.  A SPA employee (with the old scan and stick label method) scans a package and either doesn’t here the scan (just like a driver scanning the same package twice) and the printer gives them 2 labels 1 at a time. The first label (which is correct) goes on the correct package. The second label for the first package is printed and goes on the wrong package, (out of sync)
  b.  The preloaders have the responsibility of verifying the label on the package is for that package. This will eliminate 99.9% of all Mis-Loads
  c.  I can not load a Mis-Load same as I can not deliver a package to the wrong address. When I am demonstrating to a loader, I check the package to the label first. I sort the packages behind the cars (either slide or belt or box line) until there is enough work to take to the car. I walk into the car checking that the packages are for that car. I load the packages on the shelf in order drilling down starting at the primary address, if there is a suite it is put in suite order
  d.  If there is a label on a package that doesn’t belong on that package, the label is pulled and affixed to a sheet to give to the PDS to investigate. The only information that the preloader needs to include is was it an out of sync or was it caused by the system
  e.  System flips – the system has what is called address verification. If some one addresses a package for delivery on Main St, the system has 2 alternatives. First it will be queued up as an invalid address and will electronically be directed to the Data Corrections OMS who looks up the consignee and or street and corrects the electronic information. When the package arrives it will be SPA’ed and receive a label that doesn’t match the label on the package but in most cases will be correct and can be loaded. In those cases where the address didn’t match and the system located a similar address again will be correct to load the package, again it falls on the loader to understand that 100 Meadow Creek Dr, Burleson isn’t the same as 100 Meadow Crk in Southlake. The loader should know what zips he/she loads and locate out of center Mis-Loads.
  f.  What causes the system to flip an address;
  A shipper sending a package to street with street names similar to street types and leave off part of the street address
  Like the example above – Meadow Creek Drive can be shipped as Meadow Creek, the system is looking at the address line and isolating “Name” from “Type”, Meadow Creek becomes “Meadow” and the type becomes “Creek” or “Crk” if it had been Meadow Downs, since “Downs” isn’t a “type” used in a street address such as “CT”, “ST”, “Cir” etc Meadow Downs will remain the Street name

        I can’t speak for the team that implemented across the country, but I can tell you that an extraordinary effort was put into this implementation.

        The last comment I would like to leave with you, and anyone you would want to share this with, is that nothing in the methods have changed. We still move packages into the 30 inch selection area and use the PAL label to organize them in EDD order. EDD only verifies what you have memorized as you moved packages into the 30 inch selection area. You are still expected to have a working relationship with your loader and reward them with praise when your load is good, and advise them when it is poor.

        So that's a bird's eye view of the management perspective of PAS. It's a good system, it should work, it would work if everything was done right. But those of us who struggle with PAS day in and day out know it doesn't work. The loaders don't verify the address label or even the truck number and misloads are out of control. Any time saved through looping is lost running misloads. Loaders are pressured to do more with less time and usually less training. PAS is a production tool for management to try to increase numbers and the resulting errors are fatal to the system as a whole. If loaders are disciplined for mistakes, they just quit. I would too. They aren't getting paid enough to take any crap from the supervisors. Dispatching is a joke. My min/max changes every day. How can that be? Everyday an old plan is pulled up and plugged in and that's how the routes are dispatched. If you tried to "fix" your plan recently to improve routing or loading, too bad. Your "fixed" plan is not the plan they are using today. All your efforts are wasted unless they use that new plan sometime. The system seems to encourage failure by being too difficult to control. Too much time is spent each day by the drivers adjusting for bad loads and bad dispatch, running misloads or looking for packages they are supposed to have, but don't. The system needs a lot of work and the tweeking stage is over. IE thinks the system should run the way it is. There is a joke here somewhere, but the workers aren't laughing.