Sequenced mail test.

[Spedley]

When I got back to the office today, I cleared down the pigeon holes of mailsort that had been sorted while we were out. I decided to do a test with it.
I put the bundle on a frame I deliver once per week (so I know it well but I'm not the fastest) and then I started my stopwatch

There were 22 letters in the bundle and it took me 64 seconds to sort random mail. I then pulled it out of the frame in order and repeated the test resulting in 52 seconds.
The test isn't perfectly accurate because I knew there were 3 letters for the same address the second time but still it gives a good representation.

Non sequenced: 20.6 letters per minute
Sequenced: 25.4 letters per minute

It seems to me that sequenceing only produces an extra 25% at best. When you factor in the collecting of the letters, missorts, flats and packets I doubt it will shave 20 minutes off my day.

I can see the point if you don't know the frame but otherwise it isn't going to produce any real world savings.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Also the saving will not take into account wrongly addressed mail (such as incorrect postcodes) or even wrongly sorted mail. Its Royal Mail spin expecting and preparing for the prefect falling apart when its actually in operation.

[koffin kev]

i can go one better than that mr sped. our office is part of the national trial,we got a segwin sorta an we did a test with a tray of sequenced an a tray of unsequenced,both trays contained 524 letters,the difference in sorting time was 6,mins 32 secs.
the gaffers recon they save us 20mins a day,but if your walk is on the last batch to be sequenced you are usually waitin for it to come off so it actually delays you,
in the past two weeks it has broken down 12 times an our superiers ain,t come up with a plan b yet

[bandit650]

If it mis-sorts as well as the crap we have now i really dont think we will have much to worry about,Royal Mail puts all this new tec gear in but like with AI they failed to use decent soft ware if they had you would'nt have the errors you have now the error rate is so bad in our office i can easly get rid of a bundle of mail just with errors and that is where it goes wrong all this mail has then got to go back to IPS and the good thing is in thier rush to save money they havent got the staff to sort the mail because if they get everyone round to do that the walks just get later and later.

[Spedley]

i can go one better than that mr sped. our office is part of the national trial,we got a segwin sorta an we did a test with a tray of sequenced an a tray of unsequenced,both trays contained 524 letters,the difference in sorting time was 6,mins 32 secs.
the gaffers recon they save us 20mins a day,but if your walk is on the last batch to be sequenced you are usually waitin for it to come off so it actually delays you,
in the past two weeks it has broken down 12 times an our superiers ain,t come up with a plan b yet

That is very intersting.
I take it the tray had several bundles, each seperately sorted and not the whole tray sorted from start to finish?
Have you tried prepping a walk you don't know with the letters squenced?

[Stormproof]

The office had loads of mech bundles this morning full of missorts, not just area missorts but uk ones, if they can't get the mech right they don't stand a chance with the sequenced stuff.

[kingtubby]

One conclusion might be that RM are planning for a future with high numbers of inexperienced casual staff doing deliveries - walk sequenced mail would presumably save a lot more time in those circumstances, but any time savings would of course be highly relative.

[Spedley]

One conclusion might be that RM are planning for a future with high numbers of inexperienced casual staff doing deliveries - walk sequenced mail would presumably save a lot more time in those circumstances, but any time savings would of course be highly relative.

Mart.

I think you could be onto something there.

[Tman]

One conclusion might be that RM are planning for a future with high numbers of inexperienced casual staff doing deliveries - walk sequenced mail would presumably save a lot more time in those circumstances, but any time savings would of course be highly relative.

Mart.

Don't know what "highly relative" means, but it's common knowlege that RM do indeed plan to have a part-time based work force fed entirely by automation. Whether you think that's part of some Leighton conspiracy theory, or a natural progression of the technical age I'll leave up to you, but think on the fact that where once sorting frames stood in my MC, now stand three MTTs operated by 20 hour per week staff, and each machine processes 30,000 roughly per hour, and that's automation.
When the operators require no more skills or knowlege than to push a start button, they can be replaced easily and cheaply.
That's life and progress for better or worse, and was the same back in the days of the Luddites and doubtless before that too.
Don't believe all the winsome "all rejects mate" "don't work mate" gossip and all the rest either; that was said about CFCs, NP4000s, IMPs, AI, MTTs, presorters etc too, but now they're all integral to the operation and work just fine.

[axeman]

yes i'm sure they do work fine

[Tman]

yes i'm sure they do work fine

You think they don't?
Probably said by ten blokes with shovels when they saw the first bulldozer break down too.
Whatever you think, RM couldn't now function without automation, as it has neither the MC space or sufficiently knowlegable staff to run a manual system.

[kingtubby]

Don't know what "highly relative" means, but it's common knowlege that RM do indeed plan to have a part-time based work force fed entirely by automation.

What I meant by 'highly relative' was that time saved in one easily measured area i.e. prep time, will likely be time lost elsewhere in less quantifiable areas if the aim is to casualise the 'service'. Increased use of casual and therefore uncommited staff will surely lead to a heap of other time consuming problems - mistakes, misdeliveries, theft, route finding difficulties and so on. This all adds up to a poorer service and less customer satisfaction.
Any delivery postie worth their salt will tell you that you can't put a price on experience, local knowledge and customer relationships.

Whether you think that's part of some Leighton conspiracy theory, or a natural progression of the technical age I'll leave up to you

To my mind the real intentions of those who make the decisions, whether it be at the level of European directives, UK Government, Postcom or RM senior management, aren't being expressed honestly to the workforce - whether that counts as conspiracy, I don't know and it doesn't really matter anyway.

think on the fact that where once sorting frames stood in my MC, now stand three MTTs operated by 20 hour per week staff, and each machine processes 30,000 roughly per hour

That's interesting that you quote 30,000 per hour for MTT's - I've had a fair bit of experience working those machines and 30k figures are only possible with absolutely perfect mail. The vast majority of the mail received for processing is far from ideal hence the hourly rates are closer to 20k. This highlights another issue with machine sortation rates. I'm sure planners sit around in offices drawing up figures on paper and work on the basis of potential rates without factoring in the inevitable difficulties. No doubt someone will take the 30k figure times that by 8 hours for a shift and come up with 240k, when in reality the achievable rates are more like 160k over an 8 hour shift.

When the operators require no more skills or knowlege than to push a start button, they can be replaced easily and cheaply.
That's life and progress for better or worse, and was the same back in the days of the Luddites and doubtless before that too.

On a sort of philisophical note, I think it's worthwhile asking: what is the purpose of employment? Notwithstanding all the obvious answers, earning a wage, servicing the econonmy and so on, do you think at least a part of it is just about giving people self-worth and something to do. It seems to me that to resign oneself completely to the 'inevitabilities' of market forces is somewhat fatalistic - Once we cease to ask questions and challenge those who tell us what is best for us, we may as well give up.

[koffin kev]

i can go one better than that mr sped. our office is part of the national trial,we got a segwin sorta an we did a test with a tray of sequenced an a tray of unsequenced,both trays contained 524 letters,the difference in sorting time was 6,mins 32 secs.
the gaffers recon they save us 20mins a day,but if your walk is on the last batch to be sequenced you are usually waitin for it to come off so it actually delays you,
in the past two weeks it has broken down 12 times an our superiers ain,t come up with a plan b yet

That is very intersting.
I take it the tray had several bundles, each seperately sorted and not the whole tray sorted from start to finish?
Have you tried prepping a walk you don't know with the letters squenced?

sorry mr sped, i went a surfin last night an never returned to this topic.
the unsequenced tray was actually just 524 letters taken out of the ips fittings with the missorts removed and yes we did try prepin a unfamiliar walk with the letters sequenced ,-------for weeks before the machine was installed,each walkman was summoned into a gaffers office who was an "expert" on georoute.we were all asked how do we do our walks,we were shown a map of uor walks,a little red man appeared and it walked arround the route as directed by each postie. we were NOT told this info was to be put into the sequencnser and this is how your mail will be presented.what we shuld have been asked is how are fittings are set up becoz there are big differences in the way we actually do our deliveries and our fittings.so now the work comes off the machine and does not correspond to the fittings--- so a stranger gains very little from the sequencer. so, if a sequencer comes to your town--beware how you discribe your walks

[axeman]

A bulldozer scrapes and pushes just like a manager ! (it does not dig) ...... don't say they don't work but how well and just how accurate and for how long ? as we all know the human body will function with a far lower level of maintenence and do it far more accurately, just depends on wether you want quantity before quality.

[Tman]

A bulldozer scrapes and pushes just like a manager ! (it does not dig) ...... don't say they don't work but how well and just how accurate and for how long ? as we all know the human body will function with a far lower level of maintenence and do it far more accurately, just depends on wether you want quantity before quality.

It's just a well-use cliche rather than an opinion of shovels Vs bulldozers, and illustrates the fact that whatever you think of machines and automation, as soon as someone developes a machine to do the work of several humans, there's no going back.
Machines can and will improve, to the point that some happily sit indefinitely working away, and that's something the human body can and will never do.
It's a physical given; "ah yeah but" arguments are irrelevant.