One wave

[geordieboy123]

Can anyone enlighten me as to how the pilot schemes on one wave operation went in Walsall and I believe Exeter

[SpacePhoenix]

and how did the trial go of the XMS machine?

[wheresourmoney]

Our area rep came into our office yesterday and told us all it was a go and that royal mail hope to have it all up and running by 2018, the worst part of the plan for a lot of us was the 10 am start and the 6pm finish,also the walks will be 6 hours long, and the union are giving it their full backing. Any of you young lads and ladies reading this it,s not to late to find a good career elsewhere , the building trade is looking really good at the moment, for a lot of us it is already to late.

[SpacePhoenix]

Any word as to which MCs and MPUs are getting the new machines and what versions (big - replaces iLSM/IMP/TOPS2k or small - replaces CSS)??????

Walks might not necessarily be 6hrs, they might move all collections over to DO staff

[franco1]

As this will be a major change surely as union members we will be offered a vote on this?
Also will all staff be made full time?

[Deadly]

Walks might not necessarily be 6hrs, they might move all collections over to DO staff

I've got to admit collections done at the moment on delivery hasn't been as bad as many expected but shoving the busier stuff on will cause problems. Plus post offices and firms have timed collections so I think these will always stay with dedicated collection drivers.

[greengiant]

Our area rep came into our office yesterday and told us all it was a go and that royal mail hope to have it all up and running by 2018, the worst part of the plan for a lot of us was the 10 am start and the 6pm finish,also the walks will be 6 hours long, and the union are giving it their full backing. Any of you young lads and ladies reading this it,s not to late to find a good career elsewhere , the building trade is looking really good at the moment, for a lot of us it is already to late.

So finishing deliveries in the dark during winter! Will RM be supplying night vision goggles so delivery staff can safely deliver to with customers with poorly lit paths?

[ThatsNotPlumb]

The fact that walks in theory could get longer doesn't bother me as much as the fact that there could be evenings, particularly in the winter that it could be pitch black when you are trying to deliver your last few letters/parcels. It isn't like starting your delivery at 6am were it will only get brighter, it will just keep getting darker & darker if your out at 6pm.

Could anyone enlighten us as to what the proposed benefits would be of them shifting to only 1 wave.. ?

[I_Take_My_Breaks]

Could anyone enlighten us as to what the proposed benefits would be of them shifting to only 1 wave.. ?

We get to listen to the radio more as we all sit in the morning and evening rush hour to and from work

[CAMPINGBLUNDERER]

Cool if we move to a 10am start time it means our regular 9am specials becomes somebody else's problem

[Chelseablue]

My Union fees will be cancelled if they start us at 10 to 6 , I just hope the dafties don't fall for a few quid carrot as they always do ! Union take a look at you're members were all falling apart as it is ffs !

[Postie45]

The fact that walks in theory could get longer doesn't bother me as much as the fact that there could be evenings, particularly in the winter that it could be pitch black when you are trying to deliver your last few letters/parcels. It isn't like starting your delivery at 6am were it will only get brighter, it will just keep getting darker & darker if your out at 6pm.

Could anyone enlighten us as to what the proposed benefits would be of them shifting to only 1 wave.. ?

it gets dark around 3.45pm ... itll be more than the "last few letters" being delivered in the dark.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Could anyone enlighten us as to what the proposed benefits would be of them shifting to only 1 wave.. ?

More delivered by less people.

[motherhubbard]

Could anyone enlighten us as to what the proposed benefits would be of them shifting to only 1 wave.. ?

It is stage 1 of the 5 year plan involving the sequencing machines.
Nobody will want 6 hour deliveries - so say there is a maximum of 4 hrs 30
If they cut your indoor time to 1 hour. then you have got a 5 hr 30 day plus 30 minutes meal relief
6 hours x 5 day week = 30 hour contract.

So very few full time staff and lots of p/t staff. Whereas it was supposed to be 75/25 it will be more like 25/75.
It is the new Way Forward.
But can that be achieved without resorting to compulsory redundancies?

[toomuchcoke]

Could anyone enlighten us as to what the proposed benefits would be of them shifting to only 1 wave.. ?

Fewer trucks running between Mail Centres and DOs, so a slight saving in fuel, depreciation, wear & tear and presumably slightly fewer staff needed in distribution? However this would require a few things which aren't necessarily possible IMHO :-

[1] Trucks that are big enough to take all of a DO's mail & packets in one go.
[2] Enough space at the DOs for the truck to get into the DO.
[3] Enough space at the DOs for all the mail & packets in one go.

The first one is, probably, achievable but I doubt we could manage [2] & [3] at my location. Indeed, when it's Christmas levels of workload we can end up with sleeved Yorks sat in the yard unsupervised until we get to them! Now they could move the DO to a new location with more space, and a larger building and then sell off the site of the existing building, but they should be making moves in that direction now. As it is I confidently expect the RM will proceed as follows :-

[1] Switch to one-wave.
[2] Panic when they realised that mail security has gone out the window.
[3] Panic when they realised the bills they're getting due to damaging RM vans, colleague's cars and members of the public's cars trying to get the larger truck into our yard.
[4] Belatedly start trying to find somewhere new to base the DO, which they will probably size as sufficient rather than sufficient + safety margin for future growth.

Savings in Delivery would be pretty minimal to non-existent I would think. No need to pull people off IPS/packets to help unload the 2nd truck would be about the only gain, and we're so short-staffed at the moment that management tend to end up doing that at the moment! (Well, it gives them some exercise!) If the machines could, as I've seen suggested, pull out deads & redirections and sticker them up appropriate then that would be a small bonus for Delivery but an even smaller one than sequencing was.

Of course, if the sequenced mail was 100% accurately sequenced and didn't contain random mis-sorts within the round or even completely different rounds that would be nice! Even better if they also sequenced more of it!