New Technology and FedEx Custom Critical

[ATeam]

In another thread, Special K said,

With the IT capabilities FedEx has, there can't be anything difficult about creating a new macro....

....Sending e-mails to CC's, leaving suggestion messages on the VRU (option 9, option 4) seem more pro-active than just grumbling among ourselves. The company claims to be open to suggestions for improvement, so let's suggest!

I grumbled yesterday to the company (phone call and e-mail to appropriate people) and concluded (1) that I am whistling in the wind, and (2) the IT capabilities of the company may be impressive but they are also bound by specific priorities and staffing limitations.

If you doubt it, consider the fact that contractors have not been able to access their load-acceptance numbers on the extranet for over two years now (two years!). Then consider the fact that we used to be able to access this data at will.

I had to push for an answer and was finally told that making load-acceptance numbers available to contractors on the extranet is not a priority for the IT department. It is not a priority because they are preoccupied with developing a new system that will presumably be more comprehensive and better than the old.

I suggested, properly, proactively and through channels, that if the company is not willing to tell contractors what their load-acceptance numbers are, they should abandon load-acceptance as a criteria by which contractors are evaluated.

The numbers can be produced. That's not the issue. The issue is they are not being provided to the contractors in an easily-accessible way. Contractors are being asked to play a game without being told the score.

The response was that the numbers are needed for use in determining which contractors are eligible for Four Star recognition and the company-paid recognition event. My suggestion to scrap the Four Star program and thereby free the company from the expense and administrative burden it creates was met with silence.

I also suggested that the IT department be beefed up so the expected benefits of the new system can be sooner realized. That too was met with silence.

I did not push to have the IT suggestion forwarded higher or to speak directly with the top people in the company. These people are not stupid and I am certain that present IT staffing and skill levels are the result of an already-considered decision.

Patience is a virtue in things like this and it helps to remember that our carrier, along with the entire transportation industry, has been rocked by a severe recession and cuts have been made.

It also helps to understand that moving an entire company from an old information management system to a new one is a huge, issue-laden project. A whole lot goes on behind the scenes that contractors never see or think about. The FedEx Corporation technology initiatives across all operating companies are well conceived but are also, I presume, a complicating factor for FDCC.

At our lowly contractor level, it helps to reduce the technology expectations one has in the company and take with a grain of salt anything you hear about new technology. Over six years of experience proves that to be the best course. We have been highly successful under the old system and see little in the new system that will make us any more so.

Diane and I have been providing outstanding service to FDCC and our shared customers since 2003. In that time, we have been using the same Qualcomm, TripPak and paper log book system we started with, and with which we are generally satisfied.

A service we do not use was added; text messages to notify contractors of pending load offers. The telephone works just fine for us when we are out of the truck.

Automated departure calls were added but the technology remains the same: cell phone. The automated calls have helped reduce hold times, but staffing cuts have increased hold times on other calls for a net hold time increase.

The dispatch system changed but no contractor-used technology changed with it. The content may be different but the same Qualcomm unit beeps in the truck.

The Extranet is being used more effectively such that we can now download a number of forms that used to come by mail or fax.

There may be other new technologies in use now, fleet-wide, that I have forgotten about or do not know about. I am open to learning more about them if there is more to learn. Otherwise, six-plus years of talk about new company technology has produced nothing new for contractors beyond the few and incrimental changes mentioned above. If new Qualcomm units are actually being installed in trucks now, that will be the first significant technology change (improvement?) we have seen (and we have yet to see such a unit with our own eyes).

From the day we started, we have heard talk about new technology that was coming soon. This not from truck stop rumors or half-baked claims on this forum but from council members, contractor coordinators and others who are presumably in a position to know.

In their defense, these people were not lying. They just repeated what they are told. Like many human beings, they sometimes yielded to the temptation to be the first to know and share the news ahead of others. They meant well but when delays later came or changes were later made, the company turned their exciting news into an unintentional falsehood, and themselves into a suspect source for new info.

Again, Diane and I are satisfied and successful with the present system. I am not complaining about the "old" technology. I am actually glad to see multi-year delays in the roll out of the new stuff that is supposedly coming.

The longer we can continue to use what we use now, the better; especially in a regulatory environment in which the rules change in significant ways year after year. I do not like the idea of being forced to put new technology in our truck only to find out a year or two later that it is made obsolete by yet another regulatory change.

I'd love to see FDCC be the last of all carriers to go to EBORs. Let others be the first to go through the mine field. Let some time pass so the regulators can (hopefully) settle in to a new normal. Then we can commit to a system that is generally accepted, industry-proven and has a useful life expectancy.

A new Qualcomm unit that costs $5 a week more and provides the ability to fax paperwork to the company is of no benefit to Diane and me. It is an added expense, $260 a year, that we must build into our operating costs and pricing. While our carrier can charge us the $260, it is not a cost we will absorb. It is a cost that will be passed right back to the carrier in the form of the higher price they must pay if they want to put freight on our truck. (Just as the great fuel and tire discounts our carrier provides gets passed on in the form of the lower price they must pay to put freight on our truck).

We already have devices in our truck with which we can fax paperwork to the company. We use them with every TVAL load we do and on some other loads too. We can also send faxes to and receive and print faxes from anyone.

Two hundred sixty dollars a year extra to fax papers to the company? Go ahead and charge us if you want to, but the money will come out of your pocket, not ours. Diane and I are not among those expediters who mistake miles for success. Every cost imposed on us by our carrier is charged directly back to them.

[jjoerger]

I thought the Quallcom fee was going up to $35 per week. That is $260 per year more.
See TeamCaffe's post in the FedEx forum "conference call".
But we do get a built in GPS that will probably have the same crummy routing that we get now. And we get electronic logs that probably won't allow you to go out of service and drive to a fishing hole on your own time in your own truck. Isn't change a wonderful thing?

[ATeam]

I thought the Quallcom fee was going up to $35 per week. That is $260 per year more.

Your are correct. My mistake. It's $5 a week extra, not $5 a month. I edited the original post to correct the error.

[ATeam]

And we get electronic logs that probably won't allow you to go out of service and drive to a fishing hole on your own time in your own truck. Isn't change a wonderful thing?

I see no change there. When we once loaded the camping gear and drove our own truck on our own time to park it at an outfitter's store and camp for a week, we logged the drive time (two hours up, two hours back) as we normally would log any driving time. It would not be any different with paperless logs.

[Shadowpanda]

Outstanding post! I can confirm that FECC has indeed begun rollout of the new QC system. Our orientation class was the first, that was the week of Jan 25. We did not get it installed because ES had not signed the new lease on it yet. We ran into a classmate who had to take the training and he said there were many bugs yet to be worked out.
Elogging bothers me us not at all because I absolutely refuse to run illegal and my partner has quit a job because the carrier in question was pretty much requiring drivers to run far over legal HOS. What really intrigues us is the truck friendly GPS portion of the new QC and I hope to hear some news soon as to how thats going to work exactly.

[nightcreacher]

outstanding post Phil

[layoutshooter]

Great post!! It will affect what loads that we carry as well. Increased costs always should equal increased rates.

[aileron]

I am in a B unit and unfortunately, I am on a flat rate, so I cannot play with the pay. However, there are things that I can play with to recoup the $260. And I will make sure to tell them why I don't do those 'you are the only van in the area and the customer is waiting on us' bad loads, without some extra pay.

I see no benefit at all for me from the new C-Links. I already have a GPS, I don't need a fax in the vehicle, I couldnt care less about having videos in the truck, nor internet, which will probably cost if you use it, and the TripPack works good for me. I am not that desperate to get paid yesterday for the load that I just delivered.

I was just thinking, the economy went bad and income went down, but our expenses did not go down at all, on the contrary, the Clink fees go up.

[LDB]

Yes, for a van the new units are not needed and should be optional at the operators choice. Vans should be able to keep the old units and get a $5 weekly rate reduction since they have been paid for many times over by now and don't cost so much to operate.

[layoutshooter]

I see no real benefit to the new units for us either. We have multiple GPS units. A scanner, printer and email. We will have no real choice. The company is moving to the new system, e logging will be the norm. Carriers are afraid of regulations and regulators and are trying to keep them off their backs with this move.

[LDB]

For gee whiz like gps etc. the new units are good for some and a total waste for others. The only real reason d'etre is paperless logging for 10,001 gvw and above. Vans don't have that need so there's no reason to force an additional $5 weekly expense on van operators.

[Humble2drive]

OMG!!

I better jump on the bandwagon here!!

Great post!!! Outstanding insight!!!! Thanks for the great suggestion!

I will absolutely refuse to take any loads at our previous rate. They will have to add .00125 cents per mile if they want me to play!

Matter of fact. I am going to round that up to an entire penny just to ensure that we don't go broke paying for this needless technology.

I would be interested to know how much additional money other contractors will be demanding??

[MYGIA]

I think Phil’s post is very good and addresses a number of concerns I too share regarding this move toward newer technology. While parked in Baltimore a month ago, I had the opportunity to visit with one of the contractors testing the new unit. To be honest, there was nothing about it that was of interest to me. Yes there may be a few new bells and whistles, but my greatest objection is to having the new unit wired into my engine and the move to paperless logs.

I run legal 100% of the time. But with paper there is the ability to wiggle. For example, one might pull into a rest area at 0835 and leave at 0847. Since the log is in 15-minute increments I would log this as “off duty” from 0830-0845. My fear is that the electronic paperless version will not have the ability to apply common sense and that this 12 minutes will be logged as straight through driving time. As a solo operator, careful management of the log book is just as important as logging honestly in order to maximize available hours. With two drivers in the truck, I would imagine this would be less of an issue and concern to teams. However, to me it is critical.

I too am not pleased about the $5 per month increase in the fee for service, but we have no say in the matter. I sensed the sarcasm in the post by Humble2drive as it reflects only a penny per mile in his operating costs. Granted it is a small number, but a long time ago I learned an important business principle: ‘Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves”; if ever this was true, today more so than ever. We are squeezed everywhere with increased costs for almost every cost center. If it were just this one-penny, it would be less of a big deal. However, when you add a penny here and a penny there, it isn’t long until you are looking at 10, 15 or 25 cents per mile increase to your operating costs while freight rates continue to be soft.

As for the inability of contractors not see and review those loads being tagged as refusals, and this flaw in the system having dragged on for over two years, the only appropriate word is- deplorable. I could care less about the Four Star program. Until this information is readily available to a contractor for review and subject to being audited and corrected – it should be stricken from the lease.

[layoutshooter]

Every penny adds up. Every 100 pennies makes a dollar. Every dollar expense is made of of pennies and each penny must be accounted for and paid for in the rates. Otherwise you are out of business and fast.

I don't need a "nanny" to insure that I run legal. I already do that. Just another time that a company and the government are proving that they don't trust me.

[LDB]

You needn't worry about the 12 minutes in your example. On paper you must (to be legal) log 15 minutes for that stop, as you said, even though you only stop 12 minutes. With the new system if you are stopped for 5 minutes (or longer) it automatically switches your status to on duty, not driving. It adjusts backwards the 5 minutes to the point where you actually stopped. When you drive again it starts back on driving time. If you are only stopped 12 or 8 or whatever minutes, it only adjusts by that many minutes not a full quarter hour. You have the option to tell it what line to go to or just let it default to on duty not driving.