XPO | Maintenance Issues

[vetran peddleman]

Safe Stack Beams- Is it just me or are you guys noticing that many of our pup unit safe sack beams are really going down hill lately? They don't stay up. Many are bent. Time management addressed these aging beams.
Fork trucks- We've been short one FT now for about 2 weeks and it's effecting production. We still have a few fork trucks that came w/ the opening of this service center back in 1994. Time for some new ones?
Trailer pads- New trailer pads were poured here at my barn about 15 years ago w/ a building expansion. The seams are deteriorating, cracking, and crumbling apart. Time for management to take a hard look at these items and start spending some money to fix them up.

Any other neglected maintenance issues going on out there at your facility???

 

[prezars]

I've noticed the safe stack beams are not being maintained. I don't think XPO prioritizes maintenance like Conway did

 

[dalesr]

Safe stack sme's are no more. As Is always the the case here at xpo(formerly con-way), we start "programs" and don't maintain them. We have the tools and beams at my home sic, and beams do get replaced sometimes. But at the fac's I run to, you find bits and pieces of bars and no tools, so forget about it. Bars held up with straps, missing or bent to crap like you say. Same here as far as maintenance issues vp. Years ago, we shared a full time con-way employed maintenance guy. He fixed most things and got someone to fix what he couldn't. Haven't had that in six or more years. Now it's like pulling teeth to get stuff fixed, but I'm just a driver and most things don't affect me. As far as motors, we have a shop so we always have enough to go around. However, we also have some pretty old, nasty ones that should definatly be retired. Perhaps I could send them your way for you to use in a pinch!?
When you expanded your building (maybe 8 years ago), it didn't take long for the concrete to go bad. When I via at your place, I definatly watch my step when hooking, you've got some craters out there. I personally think thing will get much worse bifore(or if) they get better. I am very thankful that we have a shop, at least for now.

 

[eBiTDa]

Barn full of tractors with dashboards lit up like Christmas trees. Lots of drivers riding the hook in. Fifth wheels on to many tractors have loose jaws. Trailer and dolly tires falling apart. I myself put a trailer out of service at an FAC for waffled tires, only to find it in a load door at my barn several days later, in the same condition. Trailer decks and bulkheads are full of holes. Short on dunnage, straps and safe stack bars everywhere. We need to start taking of care of our equipment, don't see the brass replenishing our stock anytime soon.

 

[highspeeds]

Barn full of tractors with dashboards lit up like Christmas trees. Lots of drivers riding the hook in. Fifth wheels on to many tractors have loose jaws. Trailer and dolly tires falling apart. I myself put a trailer out of service at an FAC for waffled tires, only to find it in a load door at my barn several days later, in the same condition. Trailer decks and bulkheads are full of holes. Short on dunnage, straps and safe stack bars everywhere. We need to start taking of care of our equipment, don't see the brass replenishing our stock anytime soon.

Jacobs is a flipper. He will polish this turd. But EBITDA rules.

 

[micshol]

Our TM told us in the last meeting that he'd just been on a conference call about getting safe stack beams the attention they need. We also just got an email that the cost of straps is no longer coming out of terminal budget. It's now a overall company expense just order as needed. Our terminal spent just as much on straps as a facility 3 times the size and we still didn't have enough to bring every trailer up to 8. The last week we've been hanging em like crazy.

 

[highspeeds]

Our TM told us in the last meeting that he'd just been on a conference call about getting safe stack beams the attention they need. We also just got an email that the cost of straps is no longer coming out of terminal budget. It's now a overall company expense just order as needed. Our terminal spent just as much on straps as a facility 3 times the size and we still didn't have enough to bring every trailer up to 8. The last week we've been hanging em like crazy.

I hope some make it my way. It has gotten pretty rough lately.

 

[micshol]

I hope some make it my way. It has gotten pretty rough lately.

We definitely are sending em in that direction. When it was a budget item we tried to keep 8 in the trailers that we handled but haven't been able to keep up lately. Trailers used to come in, on average, 2 straps short. After the new bonus was announced it seemed as though every terminal around us stopped ordering them and trailers began to come in 5 or 6 short. Hoping with this change it will get better. I personally hang 2-3 cases per day.

 

[Fly-by-night]

Safe Stack Beams- Is it just me or are you guys noticing that many of our pup unit safe sack beams are really going down hill lately? They don't stay up. Many are bent. Time management addressed these aging beams.
Fork trucks- We've been short one FT now for about 2 weeks and it's effecting production. We still have a few fork trucks that came w/ the opening of this service center back in 1994. Time for some new ones?
Trailer pads- New trailer pads were poured here at my barn about 15 years ago w/ a building expansion. The seams are deteriorating, cracking, and crumbling apart. Time for management to take a hard look at these items and start spending some money to fix them up.

Any other neglected maintenance issues going on out there at your facility???

Why would this surprise you. The upper management of XPO never a lot of assists or had to maintain them.

 

[vetran peddleman]

Why would this surprise you. The upper management of XPO never a lot of assists or had to maintain them.

True FBN...they,(mgt.), have never concerned themselves too much w/ fixing things. For all the years that I've been w/ them, the only time things got fixed was after they broke. Seems the only PM's that they do pay attention to is on fork trucks and tractors.

 

[Serene Gene]

Safe stack sme's are no more. As Is always the the case here at xpo(formerly con-way), we start "programs" and don't maintain them.

We don't even need the SMEs- just make the beams and tools available. It's not like you need a certified mechanic or a coach to replace one. The issues with SS components has been there since before the buyout, but I've definitely noticed a lot more trailers coming in with falling, missing, or damaged beams over the last 6 months or so.

I do wonder how much employee apathy can be traced to the "flavor-of-the-month" mentality with all of these multi-million dollar project rollouts.

 

[dalesr]

We don't even need the SMEs- just make the beams and tools available. It's not like you need a certified mechanic or a coach to replace one. The issues with SS components has been there since before the buyout, but I've definitely noticed a lot more trailers coming in with falling, missing, or damaged beams over the last 6 months or so.

I do wonder how much employee apathy can be traced to the "flavor-of-the-month" mentality with all of these multi-million dollar project rollouts.

I agree, all you need is the allen wrench and a new bar. When I was on light duty earlier this year, I would take bent ss bars, remove the ends if they were good and replace the straight bars with worn ends. They just don't want to pay anyone to do it. And yes, I personally get tired tops the "flavor of the month" from ICE (improve customer experience), the straps on the forklifts that were never used to all the others! I just do my job of loading to protect our customers freight. Again, it's not rocket science and if we want to stay in business, we should all do the same, drivers and dock workers alike.

 

[highspeeds]

We don't even need the SMEs- just make the beams and tools available. It's not like you need a certified mechanic or a coach to replace one. The issues with SS components has been there since before the buyout, but I've definitely noticed a lot more trailers coming in with falling, missing, or damaged beams over the last 6 months or so.

I do wonder how much employee apathy can be traced to the "flavor-of-the-month" mentality with all of these multi-million dollar project rollouts.

We could have a crew in our yard doing ten trailers a day busy for a year or more fixing busted up safestacks.

 

[vetran peddleman]

We could have a crew in our yard doing ten trailers a day busy for a year or more fixing busted up safestacks.

Told today that management is gonna enforce swi of dsr's fixing/replacing ss w/ issues. Sooooooooooo... today I grabbed a step ladder, some nuts and bolts, wrenches, and became Joe mechanic for a while. It just really hit me while I was spending precious stripping time doing ss maintenance....'this is nuts, I'll miss deliveries, p/u's and lunch just to do maintenance stuff!!! Why can't management figure out some other way to get these ss fixed? If they can set aside equipment at re-ships to re-brand, why can't they set aside trailers to do ss fix-ups in the same way?

 

[icuicp]

Told today that management is gonna enforce swi of dsr's fixing/replacing ss w/ issues. Sooooooooooo... today I grabbed a step ladder, some nuts and bolts, wrenches, and became Joe mechanic for a while. It just really hit me while I was spending precious stripping time doing ss maintenance....'this is nuts, I'll miss deliveries, p/u's and lunch just to do maintenance stuff!!! Why can't management figure out some other way to get these ss fixed? If they can set aside equipment at re-ships to re-brand, why can't they set aside trailers to do ss fix-ups in the same way?

Two sides to this.

1.) If we ALL took the time to fix the bars like we are supposed to it would drain alot of time and be a huge problem - at first.

2.) This would be a self-fixing problem because we would

Either fix most of the bad bars/trailers

Run out of parts for repairs or......

Management would quickly halt company wide repairs because of the impact on the numbers....


Other LTL companies have similar bars in their trailers yet I don't remember seeing this problem as a topic. Do our competitors handle maintenance better than us? Our we blowing things out of proportion? We went from 0% to 100% SafeStack© trailers in a few years - too much too fast?

 

[dalesr]

Told today that management is gonna enforce swi of dsr's fixing/replacing ss w/ issues. Sooooooooooo... today I grabbed a step ladder, some nuts and bolts, wrenches, and became Joe mechanic for a while. It just really hit me while I was spending precious stripping time doing ss maintenance....'this is nuts, I'll miss deliveries, p/u's and lunch just to do maintenance stuff!!! Why can't management figure out some other way to get these ss fixed? If they can set aside equipment at re-ships to re-brand, why can't they set aside trailers to do ss fix-ups in the same way?

That's pretty stupid. City drivers replacing ss parts. Perhaps the inbound drivers/dockworkers should do it when they are done. Most barns don't have the parts. Everyone can order them, just don't want to pay for parts or labor. I'm sure when trailers are pm'd the ss is looked at. Just don't know to what extent or what the frequency is.

 

[eBiTDa]

Told today that management is gonna enforce swi of dsr's fixing/replacing ss w/ issues. Sooooooooooo... today I grabbed a step ladder, some nuts and bolts, wrenches, and became Joe mechanic for a while. It just really hit me while I was spending precious stripping time doing ss maintenance....'this is nuts, I'll miss deliveries, p/u's and lunch just to do maintenance stuff!!! Why can't management figure out some other way to get these ss fixed? If they can set aside equipment at re-ships to re-brand, why can't they set aside trailers to do ss fix-ups in the same way?

I hope you punched in on the equipment maintenance code.

 

[vetran peddleman]

I hope you punched in on the equipment maintenance code.

Nope I didn't. Why? Cause I asked our I/b super if I should swipe on 'building maintenance' before I started fixing load bars. He told me ,"No, cause it shouldn't take you all that long." I'm getting to the point now where I just don't care what they ask me to do. When they haul me into the office cause my production is down, I'll just tap into my mental notes of reasons why it is. The 1st one will be..."remember the times you took me off my fork truck and struck a wrench in my hand to fix safe stacks?

 

[eBiTDa]

Nope I didn't. Why? Cause I asked our I/b super if I should swipe on 'building maintenance' before I started fixing load bars. He told me ,"No, cause it shouldn't take you all that long." I'm getting to the point now where I just don't care what they ask me to do. When they haul me into the office cause my production is down, I'll just tap into my mental notes of reasons why it is. The 1st one will be..."remember the times you took me off my fork truck and struck a wrench in my hand to fix safe stacks?

The brass at your terminal might just be trying to build a case against you. It is C.Y.A , all day, everyday. Seen to many veterans bite the dust on some menial discrepancies.

 

[vetran peddleman]

The brass at your terminal might just be trying to build a case against you. It is C.Y.A , all day, everyday. Seen to many veterans bite the dust on some menial discrepancies.

Nah, EBITDA that's not it. Guys go around complaining too much about all the broken load bars to management. Sooooooooooooo...management wants to put a stop to all the dsr whining by telling guys to fix the garbage equipment and shut up already. You really don't think for one second that management is gonna go grab a wrench and fix ss do you? Or come up w/ a plan for a 3rd party contractor to fix them ? I really don't have to fix any of the broken ss. I could just easily let the broken stuff stay broken and not say anything to an fos about broken ss when I come across them:(by the way I'll bet my retirement pay that 99.8% of guys ignore broken ss when they come across them).. But seeing how they've told us in our pre-shift briefings that we should fix them when we come across them...I fix them when I come across them. It's on them if the real meaningful part of my job , moving freight, doesn't get done.