Bench merging

[pieoftheday]

Is it still a thing? Are the trials still underway? Have they been a success? When will it be rolled out nationally? Anyone actually done it? Was it all a dream?

[Basildon Bond]

Still on going - they have to do a full ten weeks or something. Massive headache for all. It doesn't save any time - quite the opposite. And raises the stress level in the morning.

If the walk sequenced mail was perfect (ran how ever many times as required to be fully sequenced and was 95% or higher of the mail it would be a lot better. As it stands:

- manual mail is still a good chunk to be inserted into the walk sequenced
- all flats (A4 size etc.) have to be inserted
- a large percentage of the walk sequenced mail is upside down which gets annoy very fast when outdoor and you cannot quickly read the address as it's beneath the fold under the elastic band
- the last bit of every box has to be checked as that's where all the mail that couldn't be sequenced is dumped
- packets that could fit into the bundle are slower to be inserted - the packets portion of the prep actually takes longer than the letters
- D2Ds are a separate bundle with little to no recording of where you have been during the week so that's a mess
- you need three arms when you have an extra bundle of D2Ds and you either take too many (extra weight on the loop) or take too few and have to remember where you ran out so you can start again the next day
- it takes so long to turn for packets that's generally been ditched and you'll just have to remember where the packets are for
- redirections are a pain and when someone walks over with a handful of redirections from their frame for your frame it takes minutes rather than seconds to slot them into the right place.
- I've never seen so many missorted letters since the walk was bench merged

It a fail.

[SpacePhoenix]

The sequencing will only be as good as the data input into Route Planner (which sequencing sort plans are based upon). Sometimes if a DP doesn't exist on Route Planner the system can sometimes work out what walk it's on, other times it'll just reject it.

Once a mech letter has entered the first IMP or iLSM upside down, it has to stay upside down, otherwise the CSS will not find the orange barcodes where it expects to find them and it'll reject the item. Sometimes we'll run mail upside down where it runs better through the machines upside down.

AFAIK the MDECs are slowly being replaced with some sort of automated system so there's less human intervention with iffy addresses.

If RM could adjust the software on the IMPs, iLSMs and CSSs to enable all three to read the 2D barcode on the offical redirection stickers, assuming that the new addresses is encoded in the 2D barcode it would enable a lot more letters to go as mech.

When I'm on manual letters I can often pull out shitloads of mechable mail that other MCs have sent to us as manual. Some is mechable when hand fed into the machine.

The bottom line with bench merging I think will be how many DOs they could close and merge with the space saved. No idea what % of DOs are owned by RM and what % are leased by RM

[SMS1969]

Probably another attempt to make more people leave, it’s just pathetic really. Why can’t they leave things well alone. It works fine, the way it’s done on a frame. Nothing else will work any better.

[guardianangel]

Its a dead dodo ,merging 3 walks into 2 is now happening in my office,so now we do 1 and a half walks a day prioritising tracked,the USO is disappearing right before everyone's eyes.

[pieoftheday]

Still on going - they have to do a full ten weeks or something. Massive headache for all. It doesn't save any time - quite the opposite. And raises the stress level in the morning.

If the walk sequenced mail was perfect (ran how ever many times as required to be fully sequenced and was 95% or higher of the mail it would be a lot better. As it stands:

- manual mail is still a good chunk to be inserted into the walk sequenced
- all flats (A4 size etc.) have to be inserted
- a large percentage of the walk sequenced mail is upside down which gets annoy very fast when outdoor and you cannot quickly read the address as it's beneath the fold under the elastic band
- the last bit of every box has to be checked as that's where all the mail that couldn't be sequenced is dumped
- packets that could fit into the bundle are slower to be inserted - the packets portion of the prep actually takes longer than the letters
- D2Ds are a separate bundle with little to no recording of where you have been during the week so that's a mess
- you need three arms when you have an extra bundle of D2Ds and you either take too many (extra weight on the loop) or take too few and have to remember where you ran out so you can start again the next day
- it takes so long to turn for packets that's generally been ditched and you'll just have to remember where the packets are for
- redirections are a pain and when someone walk over with a handle of redirections from their frame for your frame it takes minutes rather than seconds to slot them into the right place.
- I've never seen so many missorted letters since the walk was bench merged

It a fail.

So just needs tweaking a bit eh

[Basildon Bond]

The sequencing will only be as good as the data input into Route Planner (which sequencing sort plans are based upon).

I'm sure there is little interest in most DOs to get it right currently and everyone just deals with it today. However, this trial really shows up any problems like that and if it goes ahead (which I would doubt right now) a lot more will start showing an interest in getting it better.

Once a mech letter has entered the first IMP or iLSM upside down, it has to stay upside down, otherwise the CSS will not find the orange barcodes where it expects to find them and it'll reject the item. Sometimes we'll run mail upside down where it runs better through the machines upside down.

Seems a draft problem but outdoors it is really annoying and slows you down everyday, on every bundle, at a lot of houses. Run all the mail upside then - invent a machine that flips them all over - if they run better. That would solve both problems.

The bottom line with bench merging I think will be how many DOs they could close and merge with the space saved.

Actually the space taken by the "new" frame is the biggest in the office by some way. Rather than saving space it takes up a lot more. It's strange as with the move to a "parcels first" company, packets for the new frame looks to have been forgotten completely. They are thrown in a couple of mini yorks haphazard positioned at the sides. With a couple of full yorks of parcels it's got the most floorspace. If all the frames were to be changed we'd have to move to a bigger building.

[SpacePhoenix]

Once a mech letter has entered the first IMP or iLSM upside down, it has to stay upside down, otherwise the CSS will not find the orange barcodes where it expects to find them and it'll reject the item. Sometimes we'll run mail upside down where it runs better through the machines upside down.

Seems a draft problem but outdoors it is really annoying and slows you down everyday, on every bundle, at a lot of houses. Run all the mail upside then - invent a machine that flips them all over - if they run better. That would solve both problems.

If you were to have a machine flip them over, the CSS would reject the lot of them. There's a few MCs who don't do DTS for all wave 1 batches so they can run some through their iLSMs and IMPs which should in theory be able to read the barcodes from a letter that was first run upside down but is now the right way up. Any DTS batches can only be run through a CSS. There's a thread a few months ago now with a trio of videos that explain how DTS works

[Basildon Bond]

Once a mech letter has entered the first IMP or iLSM upside down, it has to stay upside down, otherwise the CSS will not find the orange barcodes where it expects to find them and it'll reject the item. Sometimes we'll run mail upside down where it runs better through the machines upside down.

Seems a draft problem but outdoors it is really annoying and slows you down everyday, on every bundle, at a lot of houses. Run all the mail upside then - invent a machine that flips them all over - if they run better. That would solve both problems.

If you were to have a machine flip them over, the CSS would reject the lot of them. There's a few MCs who don't do DTS for all wave 1 batches so they can run some through their iLSMs and IMPs which should in theory be able to read the barcodes from a letter that was first run upside down but is now the right way up. Any DTS batches can only be run through a CSS. There's a thread a few months ago now with a trio of videos that explain how DTS works

I'm on delivery so I don't know what those TLAs mean.

[ANDREW CROCOMBE]

Seeing as you've spent £millions so far : get the pkts pre-sorted and letters walk sorted - it can be done - so no sorting would mean get to work on the frame straight away - saving time and loads of o.t R.M must have daily meetings to see who can come up with the most stupid idea.

[Chitchat]

I would of thought a better option for speeding up indoor work, would be for all mail to be sorted by machine before it arrived at the delivery office.

In our office we spend at least 45 minutes a day with 5 staff sorting letters to walks. Higher at peak times.

[Basildon Bond]

The First Flight; The Development of Vaccines; Man on the Moon; Four Minute Mile; Climbing Mount Everest; The Great Pyramids; Ocean voyages; The Internet; Machine Vision; Robotics...... but we cannot get little bits of paper put in order by machines without explaining why it's completely impossible. Don't even ask for A4 size!

Surely it's an A-level student's project at best? Ok, undergraduate, fine! ... ... MSc? PhD? Alien technology?

[TopperGas]

The First Flight; The Development of Vaccines; Man on the Moon; Four Minute Mile; Climbing Mount Everest; The Great Pyramids; Ocean voyages; The Internet; Machine Vision; Robotics...... but we cannot get little bits of paper put in order by machines without explaining why it's completely impossible. Don't even ask for A4 size!

Surely it's an A-level student's project at best? Ok, undergraduate, fine! ... ... MSc? PhD? Alien technology?

Sounds like we can't even get standard letters the right way up let alone sort the flats and packets,

[SpacePhoenix]

The First Flight; The Development of Vaccines; Man on the Moon; Four Minute Mile; Climbing Mount Everest; The Great Pyramids; Ocean voyages; The Internet; Machine Vision; Robotics...... but we cannot get little bits of paper put in order by machines without explaining why it's completely impossible. Don't even ask for A4 size!

Surely it's an A-level student's project at best? Ok, undergraduate, fine! ... ... MSc? PhD? Alien technology?

The newer version of the CSS, which AFAIK RM doesn't have any of can handle flats and letters at the same. There is also an equivilant of a iLSM that can handle flats and letters at the same time

Seeing as you've spent £millions so far : get the pkts pre-sorted and letters walk sorted - it can be done - so no sorting would mean get to work on the frame straight away - saving time and loads of o.t R.M must have daily meetings to see who can come up with the most stupid idea.

RM would love that, more time that they'd have you out on delivery

I'm on delivery so I don't know what those TLAs mean.

Can't find the post but found links to the vids in one thread:

[Basildon Bond]

The newer version of the CSS, which AFAIK RM doesn't have any of can handle flats and letters at the same. There is also an equivilant of a iLSM that can handle flats and letters at the same time

I've been told there is ONE in the country.

DTS = Delivered To Specification?

From the videos...

Screenshot 2023-08-21 194530.png

So 30-40 percent of mail is deferred?

What is "deferred mail"? Smacks of "Wilful delay of mail".