flat sorting machine... anyone work with them general query

[BELIAL]

Five months and no pearls of wisdom forthcoming

[zaphod]

They can't sort the shrink-wrapped stuff or presumably the addresses which can't be read through the little window?

Is there any point ina a flat sorting machine which can't sort 90% of the mail?

Er, basically, no, if it is put like that.

[POSTMAN]

They can't sort the shrink-wrapped stuff or presumably the addresses which can't be read through the little window?

Is there any point ina a flat sorting machine which can't sort 90% of the mail?

Yes,more ips for us,more time in the office.

[majeed]

This is an interesting discussion. As you are probably aware, the Royal Mail internal grape vine is a powerful medium for spreading snippets of information around: more powerful than - dare I say it - WTLL sessions in the staff canteen. Over the last few months, this topic has casually popped up in conversations I have been privvy to from more senior posties, along the lines of they are going to install one in our office. Well, if they are big, we have space, I imagine, but what about the noise? Well, I guess we will have to wait and see. It would cut down on a lot of missorts, but the manual system already seems very streamlined as it is. I personally would not want to see the introduction of these machines that sound more trouble and expense than they are worth!

[zaphod]

This is an interesting discussion. As you are probably aware, the Royal Mail internal grape vine is a powerful medium for spreading snippets of information around: more powerful than - dare I say it - WTLL sessions in the staff canteen. Over the last few months, this topic has casually popped up in conversations I have been privvy to from more senior posties, along the lines of they are going to install one in our office. Well, if they are big, we have space, I imagine, but what about the noise? Well, I guess we will have to wait and see. It would cut down on a lot of missorts, but the manual system already seems very streamlined as it is. I personally would not want to see the introduction of these machines that sound more trouble and expense than they are worth!

Yes they are noisy.

But...
...inspite of my comments above, do not knock it. For wherever there's a machine, there's the need for staff to work it, and cope with the rejects - which is always more than the business envisaged.

The flip side is that the space required for any kind of machinery is much larger than the business recognises, judging by my experience so, be prepared for safe working practise and H&S issues, as well as more staff being required.

HTH

[majeed]

This is an interesting discussion. As you are probably aware, the Royal Mail internal grape vine is a powerful medium for spreading snippets of information around: more powerful than - dare I say it - WTLL sessions in the staff canteen. Over the last few months, this topic has casually popped up in conversations I have been privvy to from more senior posties, along the lines of they are going to install one in our office. Well, if they are big, we have space, I imagine, but what about the noise? Well, I guess we will have to wait and see. It would cut down on a lot of missorts, but the manual system already seems very streamlined as it is. I personally would not want to see the introduction of these machines that sound more trouble and expense than they are worth!

Yes they are noisy.

But...
...inspite of my comments above, do not knock it. For wherever there's a machine, there's the need for staff to work it, and cope with the rejects - which is always more than the business envisaged.

The flip side is that the space required for any kind of machinery is much larger than the business recognises, judging by my experience so, be prepared for safe working practise and H&S issues, as well as more staff being required.

HTH

see: http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... 89#p118989

[drevil1969uk]

There is one in my mail centre and its pretty good machine, it takes letters smallish packets and is pretty fast. I dont think its that noisy tho but i think there are downsides too!

it has taken up more space than they thought, it spits out more work than they thought (and they havent taken into account that IMO) but best of all when it breaks down no bugger seems to know what to do!

[zaphod]

Don't worry. The noisiness will come with age - give it a few months

[drevil1969uk]

I remembered another one, we are going through a resign at my mail centre and pretty much all the flat staff are having to sign jobs elsewhere, who is gonna do there jobs? as in some things the machine cant do and it has to be done manually and when it breaks down there contingency plan is.......

[markis]

Been told that it can do one York full of trays in 6 minutes ! Though RM seem to be having a lot of teething problems with them.

[POSTMAN]

Been told that it can do one York full of trays in 6 minutes ! Though RM seem to be having a lot of teething problems with them.

They were at our MC supposed to go live in August,we're still waiting........

[oldrope]

we have one at our MC and it goes like the wind sorting 97% of shrink wrap, loves the cds, the engeners know thier stuff, all in all we are a good team and get the job done. i would not swap my job on the top 2000 for a big win on the lotto.

[osiris]

They can't sort the shrink-wrapped stuff or presumably the addresses which can't be read through the little window?

Is there any point ina a flat sorting machine which can't sort 90% of the mail?

They sort shrink wrapped items fairly easily, albit with a lower read rate and more rejects.

If you want to see the impact these things have, check out the figures for Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

They are eating 150k + flats a shift, and aren't even running properly yet.

[alggomas]

We have one at East London Mailcentre.

It's manager says it is making money [probably for the sellers].
As stated by other people it will not read shiny plastic magazines or even reflective windows. Even if it goes to the coders as they cannot see the address. The new re-sign going on here , as far as I know, has reduced flat sorters to only 4 from about 22! However this is not enough, so the managers have decided on about 6/7 SA and asking other people to sort if they have too many rejects.

Also the machine rips and tears these plastic covered magazines and newspapers.I would be interested to know from other areas if complaints from the public have risen since their introduction.
If the work was culled properly there would be less damage and possibly more throughput if there is plenty of work. You can't tell the managers anything.Perhaps even tweaking the software.

The manager should know anyway the maximum thickness you can put in the machine.

10 postpersons work the machine,so if it breaks down what happens to the 10 staff? Tea,c offee anyone in the canteen?!


The strange thing that is happening here is that the rejects [i.e. provincial/wrong popstcodes etc] we sort into the blind or provincial find their way back to us a couple of days later and we have to sort them again! no constructive thoughts from managers on this.

[robd]

Thanks for confirming this,the previous post suggested everything was going according
to plan.
but in our d.o. in the North east,it's obvious as you say ,that the machine can not read
anything shrink wrapped.(i.e.screwfix,sky mags,bloody xmas catalogues)
no disrespect to Osiris,but that post reads like management speak,yet another instant success!!
it's the old chestnut again in our d.o.,presumably the dom's been told to take hours out/men off
stack because it'll all be done by the FSM.
it's not the machines fault that it cant read any thing polythene,it us that are not sorting
quick enough!