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[pieoftheday]

There was a list of anticipated start/finish times for all offices, from memory parts of Scotland had very late start/finish times

Indeed, that will make it much easier to recruit in Islay

[HTPostman]

What a load of cobblers bench merging is. I remember them trialling this years ago. Again, if you’re on a delivery with standard streets numbered 1 to 49, 50 to 2 you have a fighting chance of getting prepped about 2 minutes faster. If you’re on a rural with named houses, no chance. If the mail for a round takes on average half an hour to prep, what’s 2 minutes saving?

Why don’t they focus on what would save time:

*Not knowing what round I’m on, having to walk around a huge building to find my line manager. This could be automated so easily.
*The constant farce of queuing up for specials and van keys with 100 others. Simplify it.
*People tying up while others still prepping are told to go on sorting. How about no one leaves the office until everyone is prepped.
*Having to check 3 different sections of the yard for the van, and if it’s not there having to walk the local streets searching for it. Make it easier for us.
*Clearing crap out of the van. Start conducting idiots who leave rubbish in the van.
*Bottlenecks in the yard. Redesign it.

[pieoftheday]

Not sure about no one leaves until everyone has prepped, I dont want some bell end coming to 'help' me prep and fxck things up for me just because they're in flap. I get the jist of your argument though

[Woody Guthrie]

I don't think bench merging is really about saving time.

It's about sidelining letter deliveries to an afterthought in a more streamlined parcel delivery office network involving mass DO closures. Possibly leading eventually to mail being prepped in mailcentres and sent out to delivery offices or even directly to people's homes.

[Zicomurphy]

Following on from our '1-1's (actually groups of 10, or not at all in my case), we've been told that the latest finish time for our DO under the new system will be 3.11pm. Which is actually earlier than we currently finish on a couple of days. And yet they're still talking about no last letters later than 5pm on a national basis? So presumably, the proposed finish times are varying quite widely in different DOs?

Yeah think it depends where you are in the country, how far from mail centre etc.

They want to push us back approximately 2 hours. 8.30 start and a latest finish of 4.30.

[Hyrrokkin]

RM - why do something simple when you can overcomplicate the s**t out of it...then mess it up again !!

[SpacePhoenix]

I think that RM are seriously considering actually bring in bench merging. We've heard about a trial RM plan on running where for a batch, instead of a wave 1 and wave, the contents of both wave 1 and 2 get run AFTER the running of plan 1 (inward sort plan on an iLSM/IMP). If that were to get roled out aross the board, one of two things would happen.

1) All mech mail gets processed a day behind (which I don't think RM would be allowed to do under the current USO)
2) Final dispatches to DOs would be at least 4 hours later than their current time (so DOs FT would potentially be 11:00-19:00 or 12:00-20:00)

[guardianangel]

What a load of cobblers bench merging is. I remember them trialling this years ago. Again, if you’re on a delivery with standard streets numbered 1 to 49, 50 to 2 you have a fighting chance of getting prepped about 2 minutes faster. If you’re on a rural with named houses, no chance. If the mail for a round takes on average half an hour to prep, what’s 2 minutes saving?

Why don’t they focus on what would save time:

*Not knowing what round I’m on, having to walk around a huge building to find my line manager. This could be automated so easily.
*The constant farce of queuing up for specials and van keys with 100 others. Simplify it.
*People tying up while others still prepping are told to go on sorting. How about no one leaves the office until everyone is prepped.
*Having to check 3 different sections of the yard for the van, and if it’s not there having to walk the local streets searching for it. Make it easier for us.
*Clearing crap out of the van. Start conducting idiots who leave rubbish in the van.
*Bottlenecks in the yard. Redesign it.

Totally agree,a numbered space for each van, a van that is roadworthy not having to chase around and take it to the garage(that's a manager's job to take it to and from the garage)spending 10 minutes looking for a pda as agency have taken yours or battery is flat,can't park on a bay having to push your mail out into the street to load or wait 20 minutes to get on the bay,new start and finish times will now put us in the rush hour traffic (i hope they are going to give us an extra hour travelling time and reduce duties)Trying to find spare bags or one's without holes or broken straps i can go on but as you said the whole thing should be so simple but managers would rather sit in their office than actually trying to help,they are the one's who should be optimised they should start looking at their performance.

[Cedar_Room]

What a load of cobblers bench merging is. I remember them trialling this years ago. Again, if you’re on a delivery with standard streets numbered 1 to 49, 50 to 2 you have a fighting chance of getting prepped about 2 minutes faster. If you’re on a rural with named houses, no chance. If the mail for a round takes on average half an hour to prep, what’s 2 minutes saving?

Why don’t they focus on what would save time:

*Not knowing what round I’m on, having to walk around a huge building to find my line manager. This could be automated so easily.
*The constant farce of queuing up for specials and van keys with 100 others. Simplify it.
*People tying up while others still prepping are told to go on sorting. How about no one leaves the office until everyone is prepped.
*Having to check 3 different sections of the yard for the van, and if it’s not there having to walk the local streets searching for it. Make it easier for us.
*Clearing crap out of the van. Start conducting idiots who leave rubbish in the van.
*Bottlenecks in the yard. Redesign it.

Totally agree,a numbered space for each van, a van that is roadworthy not having to chase around and take it to the garage(that's a manager's job to take it to and from the garage)spending 10 minutes looking for a pda as agency have taken yours or battery is flat,can't park on a bay having to push your mail out into the street to load or wait 20 minutes to get on the bay,new start and finish times will now put us in the rush hour traffic (i hope they are going to give us an extra hour travelling time and reduce duties)Trying to find spare bags or one's without holes or broken straps i can go on but as you said the whole thing should be so simple but managers would rather sit in their office than actually trying to help,they are the one's who should be optimised they should start looking at their performance.

[sindba]

Our yard is so overcrowded it can take half an hour or more to get out after you're loaded and ready to go.

I'm not sure what the solution would be though.

[77SAMPOST77]

Our yard is so overcrowded it can take half an hour or more to get out after you're loaded and ready to go.

I'm not sure what the solution would be though.

The solution is for royal mail to invest in bigger modern premises with plenty of room for all new electric vans .

[LouBarlow]

Our yard is so overcrowded it can take half an hour or more to get out after you're loaded and ready to go.

I'm not sure what the solution would be though.

If they are taking oversized parcels off town rounds, bring back the bikes.

[redlen]

The amount of postman killed or seriously injured because of bike incidents were totally unacceptable. The driving habits of motor vehicles need to change first or a national netwok of cycle lanes

[jbo5066]

A manager actually dared to say today that he thought 2 man vans are inefficient and that we were better of when duties had one person on them!

[mjd24]

I think that RM are seriously considering actually bring in bench merging. We've heard about a trial RM plan on running where for a batch, instead of a wave 1 and wave, the contents of both wave 1 and 2 get run AFTER the running of plan 1 (inward sort plan on an iLSM/IMP). If that were to get roled out aross the board, one of two things would happen.

1) All mech mail gets processed a day behind (which I don't think RM would be allowed to do under the current USO)
2) Final dispatches to DOs would be at least 4 hours later than their current time (so DOs FT would potentially be 11:00-19:00 or 12:00-20:00)

Lol.