Our DOM is pulling traffic figures out of his..

[wiganpostie]

..computer. This morning my DOM told me than I had precisely 951 items and that it should have taken me an hour and twenty minutes to prep. Firstly, where does he get those figures from? And does the 951 items include any DSA items that need sorting on the IPS? We had a shedload of DSA crap this morning, which put us behind by about half an hour compared to a 'normal' Monday, causing my partner and myself to require cut off, which he obviously attributed to my good self slacking off, and I'll now be subject to a spot of monitoring for the rest of the week.

[marshallmercury]

On a board on the wall we have projected traffic figures for 2 weeks time! I don't know why they don't just give us the lotto numbers and be done with it!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I may be wrong but the figure he gives you could be made up in different ways I you would need to check which method he used.

1. The finger in the air - total guess. (Most often used)
2. The whole offices traffic but divided by the number of walks.
3. The amount of sequenced processed for each walk plus the number of CSS Mech rejects divided by the office.

But in my estimation any method used is prone to a minimum of 10% inaccuracy just due to the fact that Royal Mail use a "standard" fill figure for all trays. We know how accurate that can be.

Also if an average is used across the whole office that will also be inaccruate as all walks have different housing/business densities and of course different mail profiles.

Until every item of mail is machine processed and counted, there is no way to make an accurate count and I am constantly amazed that Royal Mail Mangers seem to think that the daily traffic figures are issued from Mount Sinai.

[Patrick Clifton]

..computer. This morning my DOM told me than I had precisely 951 items and that it should have taken me an hour and twenty minutes to prep. Firstly, where does he get those figures from? And does the 951 items include any DSA items that need sorting on the IPS? We had a shedload of DSA crap this morning, which put us behind by about half an hour compared to a 'normal' Monday, causing my partner and myself to require cut off, which he obviously attributed to my good self slacking off, and I'll now be subject to a spot of monitoring for the rest of the week.

Your mech figure + your manual sorted stuff which they would have worked out from a %

[fishtank]

You feed in the office mech,manual and packet figures and the IWT does the rest.
That's what it does...makes s**t up.
I've tested it with a manual count...it was only 50% or about 300 items out.

[wiganpostie]

I think I'm going to get one of these and take it out with me on my walk:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Digit-Manua ... 3f113242d0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[krussel]

Another thing is call rate.

When i was delivering to mostly large detached houses my call rate was very high and i would say in the 90% range even on a light day. My dom would never accept this even when i used to show her the frame.

Now my delivery includes a couple a couple of blocks of mostly small rental flats and the call rate is less than 80% on the heavest of days.

[clashcityrocker]

As I understand it:
Your sequenced/mech mail is counted by the machine.
You should have done counts on the IPS to establish what percentage of mail each walk gets from the IPS.

It isn't intended to be 100% accurate
I regularly do manual counts and it has never been more than about 20 letters out.

[feduppostie]

if he is so convinced invite him to test you on whatever day you choose

he can give you the figure he says you will have for the day


he can count your mail

then you can compare :-)

if he is telling the truth how can he refuse after all he has the figures

[CORTINA]

are we bothered...?

[5plusbonusball]

I'm bothered cos my partners mail was counted in the frame by the lm standing 5 feet away and guessing - resulting in people getting a very low prep rate which is hell to get rid of until they test you again - CORRUPT THE WHOLE MANAGEMENT ARE.

[TheCobra]

Yep traffic figures only tell half the story, so what if I have 800 items, if a certain part of my walk has a busy day, then 400 items might go to 100 houses. I might only make 300 calls with those 800 items.

Then on another day, each house might have one letter, I might have to go to virtually every house on my round, delivering one poxy letter that is going to every house, e.g. had a load of charity things recently, then you get housing association letters etc etc.

Then there's packets, how many are bulky and require a knock at the door, how many are signed-for, specials etc. How many people didn't answer, how many cards did I write.

It's a minefield, so any manager who starts quoting figures and then saying what time I should be doing it in, can basically go and swivel.

[PhilthyPhil]

Count all your items as you prep them then tell him what total BS his numbers are

A few weeks ago tour MC gave eight DOs exactly the same traffic figures for each stream. Not only are they too lazy to count properly, they are even too lazy to make up unique number for each office