FedEx Freight | New Bricks

Wtf?
Supposed to eliminate DRs. It won't.
Suppose to be able to make/receive calls. It can't.
Suppose to be able to text. Nope.
Supposed to let drivers do their own damage claims. Naah.





One day, EVERY city driver, nationwide should refuse to use their personal cell phone for FX business.

Given that Fx calls, me looking at maps, looking up customer contacts, ect accounted for a solid 25% of ky phone use, and the fact that I was with them for 15yrs,I'd say Fx owes me about $4,000.

Been over that before the company should have to pay a portion of your cell phone bill if they want you to use it for company use.
 
Been over that before the company should have to pay a portion of your cell phone bill if they want you to use it for company use.
So use the company discount and consider it as FedEx paying part of the bill. I have Verizon. I think the discount is 23%. I could be off 1%.
One day I forgot my phone. I had to message my dispatcher on the handheld and have him make my phone calls. I also had no map or GPS that day since they're on my phone. It was a pain in the ass not having it. Today's smart phones have made p&d so much easier. If you don't want to use your phone just tell them you don't have one.

P.S. Happy football day!
 
So use the company discount and consider it as FedEx paying part of the bill. I have Verizon. I think the discount is 23%. I could be off 1%.
One day I forgot my phone. I had to message my dispatcher on the handheld and have him make my phone calls. I also had no map or GPS that day since they're on my phone. It was a pain in the ass not having it. Today's smart phones have made p&d so much easier. If you don't want to use your phone just tell them you don't have one.

P.S. Happy football day!

I have tried sending messages on hand held problem is dispatch has to turn the messaging on... on their end. Football day was yesterday, quit watching the NFL when they started kneeling for national anthem.
 
I always wrote my “business” portion of my yearly cell phone bill off on my taxes...
Probably won’t be able to do it this year..
You can if you use these guys. Heck, I claim Wong as a dependent.
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Wtf?
Supposed to eliminate DRs. It won't.
Suppose to be able to make/receive calls. It can't.
Suppose to be able to text. Nope.
Supposed to let drivers do their own damage claims. Naah.

Yes, great idea.... and employees should then NOT be permitted to use phones unless in an emergency while getting paid by the company on company time..
My goodness---a little wiggle room and cooperation both ways gets the job done!


Christ!



One day, EVERY city driver, nationwide should refuse to use their personal cell phone for FX business.

Given that Fx calls, me looking at maps, looking up customer contacts, ect accounted for a solid 25% of ky phone use, and the fact that I was with them for 15yrs,I'd say Fx owes me about $4,000.
 
Not sure who the initial focus group was but someone higher up is not using common sense. So apparently we are waiting on more feedback as we roll them out to decide on a few items.
  • With the phone not able to dial out but can be called by dispatch or scammers it is mostly useless.
  • We were told of the ability to call a customer for directions but not yet.
  • Ability to use Google maps for directions but not yet. Rumored to be coming to the ELD.
  • No screen protector but maybe in the future.
  • No stylus but maybe in the future. Just turn on the function so my fat fingers don't have to misspell everything and I will buy my own.
  • Camera function off but maybe future for damage claims.
  • No belt clip/holster but maybe in future.
These new bricks will have to be carried into customers to associate the QR stickers at the time of pick up. No screen protector or holster is going to damage these down the road. I also find them slippery to handle. Is there a FedEx approved fanny pack in our future? On a positive note is the function that reads messages or new pick up's to us while driving.

I wish I could offer a positive note but have my doubts about future payout percentages improving with the new bricks and the freight 2020 are also a concern too. Perhaps it will be figured into the budget or maybe it already is but to me it looks like a bigger drain then I anticipated. Of special note are the new QR tags that are being rolled out. We are to use these currently "to get into the practice of using them" for when the system is ready.

We are told that right now only one center is equipped to use this tech, apparently in Florida. All centers will eventually be retrofitted with the readers that cover all areas of dock travel and each door where it can be loaded. Now I am not sure of the total doors in the system let alone the extra real estate of dock coverage but I see a very large number of readers/computing power that will need to be implemented in the 365+ centers. We are entering Q3 FY19 now so this seems ambitious to complete by the end of FY20 let alone but the start unless we are using multiple vendors nationwide. This will all come at a pretty large price and if not from the general fund or generous increase of our spending budget our profit margin/bottom line will take a hit.

Now for the QR tag portion for those that don't know they are having issues already. We are told they do not stick to metal and have issues with drums of liquid (plastic or metal) interfering with being read. Initial fix is to tape cardboard to metal or drums where the tag will be placed. Also the QR books have no cover but are similar is size to a book of pro's. We are told that the vendor has been asked to fix the application issue and add a cover to the books. Initial use is finding the stickers are peeling off when a driver shoves them in a pocket. There are 3 stickers per page at the cost of $7 per page and may increase with the additional cover and new adhesive type. Books are not to be given to customers so any SLC drop trailers will have QR stickers applied and associated to the pro by freight handlers when unloading trailers. Extra steps in the bricks, extra stickering at the time of pick up and slowing down dock operations may decrease efficiencies thus effecting margins.

Think about how many multiple skid orders you pick up daily or weekly. A 3 skid shipment will add $21 in additional cost to the shipment that is not currently factored into the price. At the least it will be $7 per shipment. Q1 FY19 115,745 shipments per day X $7 = $810,215 minimum additional cost to FedEx if all had QR stickers. Number of average skids per shipment are anyones guess but 2 = $1,620,430 and 3 = 2,430,645 just for ballpark figures. There were 65 days in the quarter so $52.6 million minimum. Just remember this is per quarter for the system. Add in cost to recruit/maintain talent and it could reduce our margin by 2.5% on the low end or more depending on skid count if not handled correctly.
 
Sounds like a cluster f. Don't worry folks we will get it payed for even if we have to raise insurance again and deny people their short term disability.
 
Not sure who the initial focus group was but someone higher up is not using common sense. So apparently we are waiting on more feedback as we roll them out to decide on a few items.
  • With the phone not able to dial out but can be called by dispatch or scammers it is mostly useless.
  • We were told of the ability to call a customer for directions but not yet.
  • Ability to use Google maps for directions but not yet. Rumored to be coming to the ELD.
  • No screen protector but maybe in the future.
  • No stylus but maybe in the future. Just turn on the function so my fat fingers don't have to misspell everything and I will buy my own.
  • Camera function off but maybe future for damage claims.
  • No belt clip/holster but maybe in future.
These new bricks will have to be carried into customers to associate the QR stickers at the time of pick up. No screen protector or holster is going to damage these down the road. I also find them slippery to handle. Is there a FedEx approved fanny pack in our future? On a positive note is the function that reads messages or new pick up's to us while driving.

I wish I could offer a positive note but have my doubts about future payout percentages improving with the new bricks and the freight 2020 are also a concern too. Perhaps it will be figured into the budget or maybe it already is but to me it looks like a bigger drain then I anticipated. Of special note are the new QR tags that are being rolled out. We are to use these currently "to get into the practice of using them" for when the system is ready.

We are told that right now only one center is equipped to use this tech, apparently in Florida. All centers will eventually be retrofitted with the readers that cover all areas of dock travel and each door where it can be loaded. Now I am not sure of the total doors in the system let alone the extra real estate of dock coverage but I see a very large number of readers/computing power that will need to be implemented in the 365+ centers. We are entering Q3 FY19 now so this seems ambitious to complete by the end of FY20 let alone but the start unless we are using multiple vendors nationwide. This will all come at a pretty large price and if not from the general fund or generous increase of our spending budget our profit margin/bottom line will take a hit.

Now for the QR tag portion for those that don't know they are having issues already. We are told they do not stick to metal and have issues with drums of liquid (plastic or metal) interfering with being read. Initial fix is to tape cardboard to metal or drums where the tag will be placed. Also the QR books have no cover but are similar is size to a book of pro's. We are told that the vendor has been asked to fix the application issue and add a cover to the books. Initial use is finding the stickers are peeling off when a driver shoves them in a pocket. There are 3 stickers per page at the cost of $7 per page and may increase with the additional cover and new adhesive type. Books are not to be given to customers so any SLC drop trailers will have QR stickers applied and associated to the pro by freight handlers when unloading trailers. Extra steps in the bricks, extra stickering at the time of pick up and slowing down dock operations may decrease efficiencies thus effecting margins.

Think about how many multiple skid orders you pick up daily or weekly. A 3 skid shipment will add $21 in additional cost to the shipment that is not currently factored into the price. At the least it will be $7 per shipment. Q1 FY19 115,745 shipments per day X $7 = $810,215 minimum additional cost to FedEx if all had QR stickers. Number of average skids per shipment are anyones guess but 2 = $1,620,430 and 3 = 2,430,645 just for ballpark figures. There were 65 days in the quarter so $52.6 million minimum. Just remember this is per quarter for the system. Add in cost to recruit/maintain talent and it could reduce our margin by 2.5% on the low end or more depending on skid count if not handled correctly.

We were told the qrf books cost $7 per book which makes each sticker a few cents each. Glad to know they are going to add a cover page, I’m tired of them not going in my pocket right.
 
Not sure who the initial focus group was but someone higher up is not using common sense. So apparently we are waiting on more feedback as we roll them out to decide on a few items.
  • With the phone not able to dial out but can be called by dispatch or scammers it is mostly useless.
  • We were told of the ability to call a customer for directions but not yet.
  • Ability to use Google maps for directions but not yet. Rumored to be coming to the ELD.
  • No screen protector but maybe in the future.
  • No stylus but maybe in the future. Just turn on the function so my fat fingers don't have to misspell everything and I will buy my own.
  • Camera function off but maybe future for damage claims.
  • No belt clip/holster but maybe in future.
These new bricks will have to be carried into customers to associate the QR stickers at the time of pick up. No screen protector or holster is going to damage these down the road. I also find them slippery to handle. Is there a FedEx approved fanny pack in our future? On a positive note is the function that reads messages or new pick up's to us while driving.

I wish I could offer a positive note but have my doubts about future payout percentages improving with the new bricks and the freight 2020 are also a concern too. Perhaps it will be figured into the budget or maybe it already is but to me it looks like a bigger drain then I anticipated. Of special note are the new QR tags that are being rolled out. We are to use these currently "to get into the practice of using them" for when the system is ready.

We are told that right now only one center is equipped to use this tech, apparently in Florida. All centers will eventually be retrofitted with the readers that cover all areas of dock travel and each door where it can be loaded. Now I am not sure of the total doors in the system let alone the extra real estate of dock coverage but I see a very large number of readers/computing power that will need to be implemented in the 365+ centers. We are entering Q3 FY19 now so this seems ambitious to complete by the end of FY20 let alone but the start unless we are using multiple vendors nationwide. This will all come at a pretty large price and if not from the general fund or generous increase of our spending budget our profit margin/bottom line will take a hit.

Now for the QR tag portion for those that don't know they are having issues already. We are told they do not stick to metal and have issues with drums of liquid (plastic or metal) interfering with being read. Initial fix is to tape cardboard to metal or drums where the tag will be placed. Also the QR books have no cover but are similar is size to a book of pro's. We are told that the vendor has been asked to fix the application issue and add a cover to the books. Initial use is finding the stickers are peeling off when a driver shoves them in a pocket. There are 3 stickers per page at the cost of $7 per page and may increase with the additional cover and new adhesive type. Books are not to be given to customers so any SLC drop trailers will have QR stickers applied and associated to the pro by freight handlers when unloading trailers. Extra steps in the bricks, extra stickering at the time of pick up and slowing down dock operations may decrease efficiencies thus effecting margins.

Think about how many multiple skid orders you pick up daily or weekly. A 3 skid shipment will add $21 in additional cost to the shipment that is not currently factored into the price. At the least it will be $7 per shipment. Q1 FY19 115,745 shipments per day X $7 = $810,215 minimum additional cost to FedEx if all had QR stickers. Number of average skids per shipment are anyones guess but 2 = $1,620,430 and 3 = 2,430,645 just for ballpark figures. There were 65 days in the quarter so $52.6 million minimum. Just remember this is per quarter for the system. Add in cost to recruit/maintain talent and it could reduce our margin by 2.5% on the low end or more depending on skid count if not handled correctly.

Valuable input, although I think you might have mistaken the cost of a page for the cost of an entire book.

From what I've heard SLC accounts might have to become an exception to all this. There are three very big ones at my center. One is mail, which is stacked from floor to ceiling front to back. Sometimes for remote areas we'll get a 10+ skid order with hardly anything on each skid, but it will consist of two tall stacks. No way it's faster and more cost effective to tag each skid and have someone move each one individually rather than one person grabbing both stacks, getting to the door, and then securing the freight as is.

Kind of the same for the other two shippers. They tend to have a lot of 10+ HU orders where half of it will be loose boxes. I suppose we could mandate that they palatalize those, although I'm not sure how that will go over. But it's the same issue where it's stacked to the ceiling front to back with 30+ bills. In many cases someone will get those breakers at 7:00 PM and have to strip most or all of it to chase 8:15 PM hots.

I'm sure the brain trust assumes that we won't have this late arrival issue anymore because things will be so much more efficient from now on, but between weather, traffic, and SLC taking longer than usual to get us fully loaded lateness does occur. Plus instead of putting the fastest, most efficient dock workers on challenging trailers we'll have an assortment of random people who routinely get 20+ minute scan gaps because they have to stare at their phone. I wonder how long customers would stand for a noticeable uptick in late deliveries, especially given that they already pay a premium to ship with us in order to get it there faster.

I want to be optimistic about freight 2020, but I have a very hard time believing that it will work as planned. I think quite a few exceptions and modifications are going to have to be made. Plus the scales on the lifts we got about a year ago are garbage. I think we ordered ten. At least six were sent back about eight months ago, and only two of the ones we still have actually work. Hopefully they at least hang on to the citadels during the rollout of all this, just in case something goes horribly wrong and we have to keep things as they were for a while.
 
Valuable input, although I think you might have mistaken the cost of a page for the cost of an entire book.

From what I've heard SLC accounts might have to become an exception to all this. There are three very big ones at my center. One is mail, which is stacked from floor to ceiling front to back. Sometimes for remote areas we'll get a 10+ skid order with hardly anything on each skid, but it will consist of two tall stacks. No way it's faster and more cost effective to tag each skid and have someone move each one individually rather than one person grabbing both stacks, getting to the door, and then securing the freight as is.

Kind of the same for the other two shippers. They tend to have a lot of 10+ HU orders where half of it will be loose boxes. I suppose we could mandate that they palatalize those, although I'm not sure how that will go over. But it's the same issue where it's stacked to the ceiling front to back with 30+ bills. In many cases someone will get those breakers at 7:00 PM and have to strip most or all of it to chase 8:15 PM hots.

I'm sure the brain trust assumes that we won't have this late arrival issue anymore because things will be so much more efficient from now on, but between weather, traffic, and SLC taking longer than usual to get us fully loaded lateness does occur. Plus instead of putting the fastest, most efficient dock workers on challenging trailers we'll have an assortment of random people who routinely get 20+ minute scan gaps because they have to stare at their phone. I wonder how long customers would stand for a noticeable uptick in late deliveries, especially given that they already pay a premium to ship with us in order to get it there faster.

I want to be optimistic about freight 2020, but I have a very hard time believing that it will work as planned. I think quite a few exceptions and modifications are going to have to be made. Plus the scales on the lifts we got about a year ago are garbage. I think we ordered ten. At least six were sent back about eight months ago, and only two of the ones we still have actually work. Hopefully they at least hang on to the citadels during the rollout of all this, just in case something goes horribly wrong and we have to keep things as they were for a while.
  • We were told $7 per page so perhaps they are mistaken but we were told that is the reason they will not be given to customers.
  • I would assume stacked skids might have to be tagged along a visible edge for the reader to pick it up.
  • Loose boxes might be able to scan without the QR showing as it has a chip but not sure on how deep the units will scan.
One person getting assigned a trailer to strip is going away with 2020. Forklift moves are to be reduced drastically from what we are told. You might be told to start at door 9 and that first pro might go to door 37. After loading that in door 37 it will say go two doors down for this pro to go across the dock, rinse and repeat. Think of it like a bee going from flower to flower rather then this side of the field to that end and back to the middle. This might also factor into your 5 skid stacks. As usual we all will probably get many variations of what happens or is to come based on company consistency.
 
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