Accept load first, THEN scramble to deliver it?

I just had a conversation with a gentleman in the dispatch office at one of the Swift terminals, and he confirmed my suspicion. This is likely the same for any mega carrier. Swift uses an AS400 (IBM mainframe) with a program that doesn't have all the necessary information for a dispatcher on one screen. In order for a dispatcher to see your available 70 hours of service, your current HOS for today, and your location and PTA.... they have to go through several different screens.

This particular gentleman worked for one of the carriers that Swift purchased some time ago. One of the sad parts of the acquisition was that the purchased carrier had a system that was easy for dispatchers to use. All the necessary information was on one screen for matching a driver to a load, so they could handle many more dispatches more efficiently and accurately. Swift's system is very difficult to use, some of the information is in areas of the menu that aren't apparent and dispatchers aren't trained to find all the necessary information.

This is why in Swift's system you will frequently be offered loads when you have no chance to make deadlines. The dispatchers are handicapped by a computer system that is slow and difficult to use. Therefore most dispatchers, in order to clear their load boards, will look at only a few of the parameters and fire out load offers and let the drivers sort out whether they can make the deadlines or not.

The only way drivers can help the system is to turn down loads with ETA's that you can meet, with an explanation of why you can't meet the original deadlines due to HOS. There's been times I've had to turn down the same load twice (with the original ETA's unchanged in both offers) in addition to two other loads before they finally figured out a load that could be handled within my HOS.

Bear in mind that especially at the end of a day a dispatcher is trying to clear their load board, and may rush through many load offers without vetting them very much if at all. Night dispatchers, in my experience, are also a mixed lot.... some of them seem to have great difficulty figuring out the AS400 menu's while others are champions.

 

AS400.

Man that brings back memories. We had that at our accounting office when it first came out. They still use it many years later though.

 

Yeah.... I had a parallel experience as the gentleman I spoke with. I worked for a company that was acquired by a Fortune 500 company. They brought in an AS400 with software that made my cost estimating 180% slower than before they came in. Our particular factory rebelled and I continued to use our much faster and more accurate estimating system, and left before the hammer came down and they required using it. Funny thing is that F500 company went bankrupt shortly after that.... go figure.