Royal Mail comerical delivery strategy.

[The truth!]

First of all , some of you have said you believe I have been arrogant in my post. well let me apologise if thats how I came across.

Was invited and did attend Royal Mail `s delivery strategy managers briefing for South East and London. All Royal Mail regions are having them and a handful of CWU reps have been invited.

None of what I report to you has been agreed with the CWU , but it is at the heart of Royal Mail`s delivery strategy. The meeting for the south east and London is taking place today and tomorrow and will be attended by all Delivery Office Managers , Delivery sector managers and planners.

The intial presentation was explained by the regional directors and the Peter Ashford who is one of the leads of delivery strategy.

It was outlined that over the next 3 years Royal Mail will be making one of the biggest investments in delivery in history over 400 million. In the main this is on car derived vans , HCTs and of course walk sequencing. It was stated there were the appoxmately 99500 Full time equivalants in delivery units.

They also presented there panellists results to argue that less then 8% of the mail was being delivered at 1400 to argue that all the hours in delivery units are not being worked.

Royal Mail`s delivery strategy is based on the following :

Full introduction of Geo route 2008
Full intrdouction of the indoor workload to maximise indoor efferiency .
Full introduction of walk sequencing
Full introduction of car derived vans

They believe that offices which have walk sequencing introduced will have a mix of duty patterns such as

some duties on 0600 IPS - Prep and merge - delivery - 1400
others 0730 - perp and merge two walks and then delivery till 0300
others on 0930 till 1500 on prep and merge and delivery
and others who are 1100 delivery then collection
and others who are part time and start at 10 and perform delivery only.

All of this is based on Royal Mail`s belief that walk seqeucning will mean that they prep or merge 1000 items every 19 mins.

On car derived vans they stated that they are investing 420 million into car derived vans and other equipment.

HCTs can hold according to them 75 killos appox and will need some replishment.

Powered HCTs are designed to take 150 kilos.

Car derived vans will have one PDA per van to introduce new services like choose a time and date for packet delivery etc. Car derived vans according to Royal Mail can help redesign offices from say 50 walks to 250 loops. So on a monday and tuesday a van may be able to complete 7 loops per day and on a weds , thurs , frid and Saturday just 5.

Royal Mail accept that appox 500 indivduals will still be allowed to use their cycles but they will be the exception not the rule.

I have to say some of these delivery office managers looked shocked at the plans , whilst others seem to eager to introduce them.

Remember none of this has been agreed with the CWU and please dont suggust I support them I dont but that is the problem we all face that Royal Mail has a plan which is going to be very hard to veto altogether.

Hopefully if and when the national agreement is introduced that we will minimise their effects and have benefits and safeguards in place.

I do not want to arrogant or prationising but the scale of change which Royal Mail wish to introduce is frightening and in my belief one of the biggest
gambles in industry histoy.

[POSTMAN]

All of this is based on Royal Mail`s belief that walk seqeucning will mean that they prep or merge 1000 items every 19 mins.

Is that not impossible!!

First of all , some of you have said you believe I have been arrogant in my post. well let me apologise if thats how I came across.

Not to me,you give good info,keep it up,you're going to get flack,part of the job as you know.

[floydy]

Holy s**t, RSI complaints are gonna increase i fear

[POSTMAN]

Oh,and we had a list on here yonks ago regarding where the WSM will be sited,is there an up to date one going around T T?

[Cut Off King]

New management transport to be introduced sept. 2010

slavedriving boss.jpg

[fishtank]

the truth wrote
"Remember none of this has been agreed with the CWU and please dont suggust I support"

I would not for a minute suggest anyone in the CWU would support this.
But i have two questions.

1,Why were certain members of the CWU invited to this breifing a couple of days before the agreement is finalised.

2,Why are you leaking this information to the membership a couple of days before the agreement is finalised.

the truth wrote
"Hopefully if and when the national agreement is introduced that we will minimise their effects and have benefits and safeguards in place."

Maybe the answer was staring me in the face all along.

[Broxi51]

Car derived vans will have one PDA per van to introduce new services like choose a time and date for packet delivery etc. Car derived vans according to Royal Mail can help redesign offices from say 50 walks to 250 loops. So on a monday and tuesday a van may be able to complete 7 loops per day and on a weds , thurs , frid and Saturday just 5.

At the moment there would be 50 posties doing the 50 walks. Under RM's new strategy we will have 50 vans plus 50 posties to drive the vans
This is being based on the wed, thurs, fri & sat where only 5 loops will be completed so 50 vans will be needed to manage 250 loops and 50 drivers to drive the vans.
I was never very good at arithmetic so can someone point out what I am missing (apart from a brain for working at RM )

[Ahebban]

To be fair we all knew that change was coming, and that it would involve WS, CDV, HCT etc .. all that we have now is a little meat to chew over rather than the bare bones we had before.

The most striking comment for me is the

They also presented there panellists results to argue that less then 8% of the mail was being delivered at 1400 to argue that all the hours in delivery units are not being worked.

When members at my DO see that hopefully it will be the kick up the ass they need to stop coming early, using their own cars etc, etc.

I can Reps and DIM DOMs in a no-win situation when it comes to putting any agreement into practice based on what has been laid out above!

[fishtank]

To be fair we all knew that change was coming, and that it would involve WS, CDV, HCT etc .. all that we have now is a little meat to chew over rather than the bare bones we had before.

The most striking comment for me is the

They also presented there panellists results to argue that less then 8% of the mail was being delivered at 1400 to argue that all the hours in delivery units are not being worked.

When members at my DO see that hopefully it will be the kick up the ass they need to stop coming early, using their own cars etc, etc.

I can Reps and DIM DOMs in a no-win situation when it comes to putting any agreement into practice based on what has been laid out above!

You and i both know Ahebban there was one reason for the timing of this breifing and that was to terrify the membership into accepting this agreement.
I expected no less from Royal Mail management but i expected a little more from senior CWU officials.

[DGP1]

All of this is based on Royal Mail`s belief that walk seqeucning will mean that they prep or merge 1000 items every 19 mins.

53.63 per minute, so that nearly 1 per second, every second without fail - this must be the figure they need to justify the investment in the equipment

[TrueBlueTerrier]

prep at 1 item every 1.14 seconds - what planet are they on - have they eeven thought about risk assessing the impact with regards to back strain, arm strain, ergonomics, and as someone mentioned before RSI.

[fishtank]

And in the next 7-10 days you will be presented with an agreement that will make some of this go away.

A very nice piece of PR black ops Royal Mail.

Is everybody suitably terrified yet.

[GHOSTman]

And in the next 7-10 days you will be presented with an agreement that will make some of this go away.

A very nice piece of PR black ops Royal Mail.

Is everybody suitably terrified yet.

That's exactly what I was thinking Fishtank. It looks a classic case of painting a worse case senario then hitting us with something that is bad but not quite as bad as we believed it could be....so we accept it.....bingo...job done!

[S6 Stroller]

And in the next 7-10 days you will be presented with an agreement that will make some of this go away.

A very nice piece of PR black ops Royal Mail.

Is everybody suitably terrified yet.

That's exactly what I was thinking Fishtank. It looks a classic case of painting a worse case senario then hitting us with something that is bad but not quite as bad as we believed it could be....so we accept it.....bingo...job done!

Absolutely. They've already started drip feeding the horror stories at our place. I look forward to the news that our wonderful union have told RM where to stick it and brokered a shiney new and improved agreement on our behalf. Everybody wins. Oh, apart from us naturally.

It's all a bit embarrassing really isn't it?

[The truth!]

Postman it does come with the job.and I have big shoulders. I have got the latest programmes up date for walk seqeuncing and when i get time will post it up. Can you believe that Anerley is earmarked for two machines to service the Norwood cluster and then Greenwich 3 machines and SE1 3 machines.

Brox the 7 loops on a Monday and Tuesday and 5 on a Weds will depend on the length of your loops ?? and that was just what was explained.

Now whether 1000 items in 19 mins is possible , no it is not in my opinion. What was laughable is that they gave a number of managers 50 letters to prep as we do now on just the top frame of a prep 2000 frame and timed them. They the gave that same work sequenced and it took on average 1 min 30 this indeed did save time on the normal prep. But 1000 in 19 mins is in no way realistic. Now we asked the question of repitive injury and they responded by well they start aching then they can start sequencing work at another part of the walk.

Now fishtank these events were booked prior to Christmas and the union heard about them and then a debate took place , Royal Mail were stating that they wanted to take all their managers through their delivery strategy and was not going to refer to any thing which is happening in the talks with the union. Moreover they said it was their right to do so.

In the end the Bussiness decided to alay the unions concerns stating that Divisional Reps would be invited. We were then told by our Headquaters to attend and report back These events have taken place in Midlands. South West , North East . South Central and today in London and the South East. They will be held in Northern Ireland , Scotland , North West and Anglia as well.

True to their word nothing was mention about the details of the national agreement other then that the national agreement may change or modify the plans.

This was not me trying to scare anyone or trying to make people accept anything.

I was explaining there strategy.

People compain that there is not enough information but when further information is provided I then get accused of trying to bounce someone into supporting this change.

Thats simply not the case. My feeling as I left the hotel this afternoon was that some managers couldt wait to get back into their offices and start rolling out the plans already. In fact some of questions from managers were this

Well in the Canterbury area we already have HCTs operating up to 8 miles away from the office by way of transporting it by normal vans will the introduction of car derived vans stop us being able to do that.

Another one was well we have not got enough drivers for car derived vans can we now recuirt people who can drive and then transfer those who refuse to drive car derived vans out of the office. The answer to this one was even more staggering it was well identify those who currently drive their private cars on delivery and convince them they have to now drive those car dervived vans.

We expressed our concerns that the changes they were introducing was possibly the biggest gamble in industry history and that unless they can get the buy in from our members then it will never work.