Bike manufacturer sees huge reduction in delivery damage by printing TV on box | Hacker News Reader

Bike manufacturer sees huge reduction in delivery damage by printing TV on box

medium.com

568 pointsSomeone229 comments

Related: https://www.atheistberlin.com/study - Shoe company finds relationship between lost packages and package branding.

A friend of mine shipped books to me via usps, once, one physics book was replaced by a bible. Very odd.

I wonder if the person who made the switch thought it was the funny thing to do or the good thing to do.

Knowing the price of textbooks it mostly seems like the thievy thing to do.

Sounds like maybe they should have held onto the Bible instead.

Atheist shoes? I'd worry they'd arrive without soles...

...I'll see myself out.

That was pretty good.

While off topic. This is pretty great. If I ever run into someone with these shoes I need to remember this.

Popular Mechanics found different results when they did a similar study [0].

>"One disheartening result was that our package received more abuse when marked "Fragile" or "This Side Up." The carriers flipped the package more, and it registered above-average acceleration spikes during trips for which we requested careful treatment."

[0] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/a6284/whi...

Across a sample size of 12 trips total.

That was a disappointingly small sample size given the nature of the magazine, I agree.

On the other hand, I doubt this technique has been tried with hundreds of bikes yet either. So everything about these statements could just be worthless information I suppose.

That may be a study with similar intent, but writing "fragile" or "this side up" definitely feels like it should have a significantly different psychological effect on the handler than that of an image of a TV.

It's about breaking something tangible rather than being told what to do.

I would be tempted to sort of accidentally drop the package, just so that I could guess what it is by the sound it makes.

I should paint a TV on myself for when I'm riding my bike in traffic.

That's one way to get people to see you in traffic.

Just don't go topless.

I once saw a person in the subway with their head in a (CRT) monitor. I steared clear.

A researcher from Bath University found that drivers gave him less space when he was wearing a helmet.

They gave him the most space when he was wearing a long blonde wig.

http://archive.cosmosmagazine.com/news/blonde-wigs-safer-hel...

Startup opportunity: bike helmets with wigs on top.

That study is cited in every debate about helmet use, yet it was barely scientific -- the researcher was his own test subject.

It would be interesting to see if the effect is reproducible under better experimental controls, such as analyzing video recordings from places where there is a lot of mixed car and bike traffic. Of course the analysis would have to be automated to avoid bias.

The data could then be combined with an estimate of the actual increase of crash risk correlated with passing distance, e.g., how many crashes are due to drivers passing too closely. What actual risk is being influenced here?

In my experience (anecdotal of course) of near-misses, the drivers were not aware of my presence at all, typically because they only look for what they expect to see. It's hard to imagine a mechanism in their brains, scanning for helmets but not cyclists.

For Science: Let's see if LG's willing to have some TV boxes printed with bicycles...

Yes, they can ship them to me and I will verify the results.

BREAKING: Television manufacturers receive threats from printing companies.

Why?

The joke the previous poster was making is that the boxes were printed "by" bicycles instead of being printed by printers. Hence the printer companies would be unhappy.

OT, I know, but I find it amazing how slippery language and meaning can sometimes be. (I was once a professional word nerd.)

In particular, your read is in a completely different direction than mine which is:

1. Premise (GGGP): TV boxes printed (by printers) depicting bicycles on the outside.

2. Joke (GGP): TV manufacturers are threatened by printing companies demanding protection money, which if not paid will result in printers depicting bicycles on the outside of boxes containing manufacturers' TVs.

Your read is much more sophisticated than mine and, in my opinion, is a fairly novel and creative joke, at least neutral if not intriguing.

While the joke I see is predictable to the point of tedium, I'm not sure it's so bad or offensive it's worth hitting GGP's karma.

EDIT: formatting

The "..." in the original implies omitted words. If the meaning was to print by using bicycles, the sentence would have ended with a single period. Instead, it elides "on them" ;)

BREAKING: Televisions

If HP manufactured the bycicles then they would have a short print cycle.

This is analogous to Batesian mimicry [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry

"Capitalism Imitates Life"

Spot on comparison though. Just proves that millions of years of evolution has solved a bunch of problems for us if we know where to look.

Unfortunately, the boy who cried wolf will apply if this is more widely adopted, and then pity the poor folks who order TVs.

Maybe the resulting increase in shipping insurance payouts will finally force logistics companies to actually give a fuck about their quality. It's about time.

More shock stickers on all products please!

Thought experiment: for sufficiently fragile & expensive products, attach a small black-box style "smart tag" equipped with a accelerometers. It's reset when yielded to the shippers, and read when the shipment is delivered. If the recorded accelerations are out of bounds (e.g. beyond the shipper's SLAs, beyond packaging standards, etc.), then there's ready evidence of shipper abuse.

Simple and cheap versions of this exist: https://www.uline.com/Grp_332/Damage-Indicators

[edit] Uh, maybe not so cheap from this particular company. You probably could do this for less with a little electronic device.

I think they send you a box. You have to divide by 10 or 100 or whatever to get the real price per a unit. 5 bucks for a damage indicator for a very expensive item isn't too unreasonable.

Thanks for the link, these little devices are super interesting!

When I've seen these it's not even "one sticker per item", there's been one attached to an entire pallet of TVs or other electronics, which is probably why the price looks a little high on a per-item basis.

These are exactly what I had in mind. I have one on our child's car seat to see if its shock limit is exceeded so I can safely pass it on to someone else once our child outgrows it.

One of the items I saw costs $146 for 50 units.

But the best was reading that they are delivered by truck (to avoid airplanes shocks?)

And would be funny too receive a box and find that all your 50 units were activated due to their delivery:-)

The shock sensors we use are delivered "unarmed", i.e., they have a little pin that holds the sensor in place. This pin is removed the moment you expose the sticky tape to attach the shock sensor to the package.

Are they ok? Reasonable price? Could you name it? Thanks :-)

"Shockwatch Dropspot". I have no data on how accurate or reliable they are.

I've been kicking around the implications of falling costs for electronics, and improvements in battery design.

SOC (system on chip) computers are now in roughly the $5 range, less in cases. Costs fall by roughly an order of magnitude a decade (Moore's Law, generalised). So we're looking at a world of $5 heading to $0.50 complete system indicators, with a battery life (think an Amazon Kindle) which can easily extend weeks, possibly months. In fact the battery is probably the most expensive part of this.

Simple systems could be even simpler.

You can create a datalogger which notes every single acceleration noted by a package from the time it leaves the factory, down the the second. Wireless capability means it can log in and report periodically en route, whenever it finds itself within WiFi range.

For sufficiently expensive goods (anything over about $100 in price), this becomes a part of the shipping package. Even if you're not getting 100% reporting at endpoint, the data trail itself is going to be sufficient to point out where and when within the delivery chain problems occur.

Shippers (that is, the originator of the goods) and their insurance carriers will likely collectively have sufficient leverage to open carriers (the shipping companies -- FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.) to identify where within their own process the damage occurred. Hotspots -- locations or transport segments with high-damage incidence -- will be pretty much immediately obvious. Even just a few hundred tracers would provide that information.

We're headed to a world of highly inexpensive devices and if not ubiquitous, highly probably WiFi access at multiple endpoints. Self-logging of this sort seems exceptionally probably.

Adding general 4GL WiFi access and even just a few minutes of data transfer capability should be possible for little more, and would allow systems to phone home directly.

It would surprise me if much of this doesn't already exist.

I ordered expensive-ish tower speakers that were shipped FedEx Ground. When the driver arrived, I was present to give him a hand getting them off the truck. Standing about 5 feet tall, he decided "on their side" would be easier -- and proceeded to simply knock them over. My incredulity was met with a "if you think that's bad, you should see how they're handled at the warehouse". Fine. I understand. And while I appreciate the candor, did you really have to do that in front of the customer?

edit: so, in reply, I sincerely hope so.

I'm going to guess TVs are significantly more common than bicycles, so at worst its efectiveness will be "diluted".

This isn't a tragedy of the commons issue. It's a quality of service issue.

Either TVs are getting better service for free, or bikes aren't getting the service that they pay for.

Part of me thinks that the bikes are getting smashed up because people don't like cyclists.

Especially people driving trucks for a living. While everybody can appreciate a huge TV

I wonder if the number of stolen boxes (either while in shipment or when left on porches) went up?

Will any delivery company actually just leave a TV on your porch?

It happened to me. A TV intended for someone else ended up at my front door, and I had to chase the delivery guy down. Not even the correct street. It was shipped from Walmart, no signature required.

hypothetically, what would happen if you kept the TV, leaving it unopened for a month or so (so you can be sure nobody wants it anymore), then used it yourself?

I don't know but people do it all the time when receiving large quantities of narcotics or merchandise paid for with stolen credit cards. You write "return to sender" on the parcel and leave it unopened by your front door. Sounds like a bad urban legend akin to "if you ask an undercover cop whether they're a cop, they have to tell you" but plenty of people still do it.

You did the right thing morally. Legally you had no such obligation. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchan...

If it's addressed to you - you can keep it. But if not - you'll commit mail fraud.

That doesn't really cover misdirected mail though just companies sending out merchandise and trying to get paid for it.

The law does not declare misdelivered merchandise to be a "free gift" like unordered merchandise.

In fact, the code states: "Whoever, without authority, opens, or destroys any mail or package of newspapers not directed to him, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." 18 USC 1703

Does this apply only to USPS deliveries, or are private shippers like UPS, FedEx, etc. included?

That would depend entirely upon the legal definition of mail.

So you don't have to return it, but you can't open it?

In the same week UPS made me sign for a set of $5 kitchen utensils I'd ordered off Amazon but left a Mac Mini on my doorstep no problem.

Been there. It's worse with condos too where they often refuse to deliver unless you're there, they won't even take a signed note. Really annoying when you have a textbook delivery and an upcoming assignment.

Even worse when you can't get your package because they give no delivery window and attempt to deliver it to you during class, make you pick it up somewhere, then say it's your fault for not being at home 24/7.

My apartment door buzzer calls my phone. Generally they don't even attempt to buzz me, and then make me pick it up on the other side of the city.

I would suggest complaining to your local branch. You basically have proof that there was no genuine attempt at delivery. The driver will get in trouble.

Wow, cool. Where did you get that? Does it also have other features such as allowing you to talk to the person in front of the door?

There are interfaces for most common door buzzer systems. I have mine linked to my FritzBox, super nice if you're taking a bath and someone rings...

My landlord already had it installed when I moved in, but yes, I can talk to the person at the door and press 9 to buzz them in.

Very neat. I was hoping to unintrusively tinker with my buzzer in my condo, but I found that the wires coming out of the back of the device used some sort of signaling system, and I couldn't just use my own controller to switch on the door buzzer to let someone in from my phone.

With UPS, you can sign up for MyChoice(?) (it's free) and "presign" online.

Doesn't matter. They won't take any signatures at many condos here. They will only deliver if you are physically present to receive the box.

I just get everything delivered to the office.

I've found that postal companies ignore the option to "Leave at Door" even when it's marked in their system. (Canada Post, sigh.) The only thing that consistently works for me is to make the first line of my address read: "(Leave at Door; Do Not Card; Buzz XXXX)"

So far, I've only had to go to the post office 1 out of ~10 times, and that because the postal company said they were contractually obligated to get my signature. (So I don't get Dell shipped to my unit any longer.) It's striking how that one line changed everything for me.

That said, re. startling's comment elsewhere in this thread, I don't think lack of buzzing means they didn't try -- they often have to drop off more than one person's package in my building, and I never see delivery folks waiting by the door buzzing every individual's number ;-)

This is why I get all my packages shipped to work. Since it's a business, they're guaranteed to get delivered and signed for.

Sometimes Amazon uses a courier service that delivers to my work address at 9pm. They decide the building is closed and I never see my package again.

I don't remember if it was FedEx or UPS, but whichever it was left a top of the line Apple PowerBook at my front door, despite that shipment being very prominently marked as signature required. My apartment complex had a front office that could accept and sign for packages.

What made it even more annoying was that many times that company would leave packages at the front office when I was home. They would not even try to deliver to my apartment. They would just go straight to the front office.

I had a PS3 left on my front step (visible from the street) during launch week, and the shipping label indicated it was a PS3, so it wouldn't surprise me.

That's the only way they do it at my place, UPS and FedEx. I've had an electric Yamaha piano and other instruments left leaning on my apartment door, in full view of the parking lot and the high school on the other side of the fence.

Anymore, if I get to choose then I choose FedEx, because it's very easy to have the delivery re-routed to a FedEx/Kinkos store, and pick it up there. UPS re-routing has been impossible for me.

I would say that is likely

I wonder what sort of damage these bikes are receiving, because they're designed to be ridden by a person... a TV is definitely far more fragile.

Carbon fiber frames can be surprisingly fragile, especially when subjected to forces they weren't specifically designed to withstand, such as being crushed inwards from the sides.

Vanmoof (the company in the article) seems to specialize in aluminum commuter bikes though, which should be reasonably robust. Aluminum is a wee bit brittle, but it's a lot more burly than carbon fiber. As such, I suspect the frames aren't the problem. It's probably what's bolted onto the frames. Shifters, pedals, fenders, etc. can all bend/break if a package is given "UPS special" treatment.

All of this is me hypothesizing, so take it with a grain of salt: the widest part of the frame is probably the rear half. When mounted, a bike wheel helps keep the rear "fork" spread properly, but if you were to drop an aluminum frame without the wheel there, it would easily bend.

Standard way of shipping bikes from manufacturer is with, and front wheel not mounted. Pic: https://securecart.net/merchant/387/images/site/bikebox.jpg There are plastic fork clips that are used for support when the wheel/axel is not in place.

Just having the finish gouged through the cardboard is enough to count for damage that I wouldn't accept.

Honestly I'm not sure. I worked at a bike shop and we would box and ship a bike for $50. I sold and shipped probably 4 bikes when I worked there and they all were received without so much as a scratch.

I'd lay this one on the bike company. I'm guessing they didn't have big enough boxes for cardboard to sit between the bike and the outer box, or didn't add enough padding around the tubes or some combination of both.

You are also working on a much smaller sample size than the bike company. :) I see the story says a 70% to 80% drop in damages. I don't see the total numbers.

My guess is that it it was still a low percentage, but that this was still worth the change. And, it would have been immeasurable at the scale you were talking about.

If there's a breaking rate of 10% for all bike shipments, the bikes you shipped would've had a 66% chance of not seeing any bikes broken. I'm pretty sure a large scale bike company would see more issues.

I smoked 1 cigar and didn't have cancer. This whole smoking causes cancer is such a fad.

Had a crack in one of my shifters and one of the pulley wheels (plastic) of the rear derailleur was broken.

The crack in the shifter was more of a cosmetic issue, but the pulley wheel had to be replaced immediately.

The rear derailleur has a steel guard. Without it, the derailleur probably wouldn't have survived this.

Not everything on a bike is as sturdy as the frame.

In good bike packaging, there is a plastic clip or cardboard cutout that. Like the black circular thing just coming out of the box here, http://blockbikespdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/FullSize... But I have seen a couple bent dropouts in bikes received from manufacturer. Dunno if shipping handling was the reason, I'd just fix it and move on. Probably our shipping-related failures were way below industry normal though, as our shop was <100 km from port (where things still travel in container units), and the distributor/importer handled the shipping to us themselves.

Any visible damage to the box is already a negative brand association even if the contents are fine.

I see a possible solution here using technology:

Senders should add a small $1 "black box" recording acceleration data, and shipping companies should be able to query for a certain package and a certain timestamp, which employee was accountable at that moment.

Then when you receive a broken package, the black box tells you the timestamp when it was thrown to the ground, you tell that to the shipping company, which then finds the employee at fault and gives him/her a warning/sacks him/her.

Products similar to this do exist including "intervention services"... presumably for more than $1 though http://customcritical.fedex.com/us/services/secure/monitorin...

Great idea, but how about 95c cost

I've seen even cheaper thing on a machinery that shouldn't be tipped over - a liquid in a U shaped open ended plastic pipe on a sticker. Tip it over too much, the (coloured) liquid spills out onto the package and tells the recipient to refuse the package.

Boeing puts a picture of a Lamborghini on their first class seats while in the factory in Evert to covey the cost of them -- amazingly they do cost about as much as one too.

Do you have anywhere I can read more about this? It sounds interesting.

Go to their factory tour. :)

Could just find a mention here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/inside-the-dreamlin...

But it's on a seat cover and it's a cheesy clip art pic. Not much to it.

Printing wolf on the box would see them some careful handling too, for a while...

Or a bobcat. Or just put one in the box.

Is the success rate of printing the decoy box that much better for the relative cost compared to just putting shock stickers on the box, though? Probably. But one is an accidental effect with no guarantee that it will work, versus a tool that is designed for this specific purpose.

https://www.xkcd.com/325/

Or scary eyes...[1]

But not sure what customers will think.

[1] http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/04/posters-angry-eyes-ac...

I read somewhere that sailors would get Jesus tattooed on their back to get leniency when being whipped. Maybe the same would work here?

Wonderful (part) solution. I love things like this that tap into the mind so subtly.

My favourite is how it's easier to sell a couch for $20 than it is to give away. Proven three times in undergrad.

Maybe the thought process is "well, if it's free, it must be so bad he doesn't even want $5 for it, so I'll pass". Could be wrong though.

The "never get damaged" parcels are the live chicks we deliver (and the return empty).

If someone told me they improved shipping damage by a simple outside change that much I would say the have poor parcel design and strength to begin with.

Daily I see idiotic mailers with improper packaging. Examples diapers normally on a grocery shelf with open space on the underside (Amazon is famous for this) that are exposed

Liquids that spill over other unprotected parcels and slugs.

LPs with soft cardboard.

Anything sent from an Etsy source. It's a serious joke.

The article claim is very questionable in my mind from my perspective. Even the worst package gets through unscathed. I deliver coconuts from Hawaii with only a stamp and Sharpie address.

The greatest factor in the proper safe arrival of a parcel is NOT the delivery BUT THE PACKING. Take that to the bank.

The details of shipping are quite interesting. Martin Guitars (a well know brand) removes absolutely every reference to their brand or the fact that they are guitars or musical instruments in the external packaging, while keeping an internal box with their logo, etc... a box within a box

They started doing so after having issues with "disappearing" guitars in transit (though probably at the moment with all the new tracking systems this is more complicated nowadays)

Their packaging is also quite protective, as you can imagine with a musical instrument...

Fantastic.

Now I hope that some car manufacturers would introduce new models that look like a TV thereby resulting in fewer accidents and lost lives.

In Korea, the magic phrase is 'contains kimchi' and you are guaranteed of safe delivery. All hell break loose when kimchi leaks; boxes get wet and smelly, kimchi stains don't come off easy so delivery people take extra measures to prevent it.

When I ordered my bike from UK (Evans cycles is awesome), it shipped via DHL. They're pretty high on the meh scale. The box had double corregated cardboard and the bike was packed for war. I'm sure it wasn't handled gently. That seems like the expectation with shipping. Super cool this hack is! Maybe one day they'll try a picture of a glass chandailer too.

This all said, 90% of the boxes I get from Amazon via UPS are in perfect condition - it's remarkable how well they handle small packages.

There's a national geographic show called "ultimate factories" that has an episode called "ups worldport". Super fascinating. I recommend it!

Can attest to the variance in shipping packaging quality.

Bought an 80's Italian steel bike from an Italian brick and mortar restoration shop -- excellent packaging, foam padding, positioning, etc.

Bought an 80's steel bike from a US individual -- really shoddy packaging and positioning of the bike (why would you leave the rear derailer and drop outs exposed to external shock?) that resulted in a trip to the shop to get the drop outs bent back into place. Luckily no damage to derailer.

Moral of the story -- I'll be looking specifically for "professionally packaged by bike shop" for future purposes.

I have a conspiracy theory that the entire delivery infrastructure in the US (all the u's, p's s's, and f's) have been infiltrated by Scientology/Chucky Cheeze.

I'm still fine tuning it.

Bikes are not packed particular well. The top and bottom staples pull out quite easily and could pop out under reasonable twisting. They really should be strapped.

I bought a bike from Jet and it arrived damaged, the box popped open, parts had fallen out. Returned that (trouble free which was nice) and ordered another from Amazon instead.

Amazon have a checkbox to have large deliveries that would normally not be in an Amazon branded box placed in one at no extra cost. Checked that box knowing it would act as sacrificial outer layer.

Pretty decent piece of stealth marketing! Catchy blog posting about a fragile goods shipping hack, raises brand awareness for a company, it's products and its mission.

This does not surprise me. To inflict change, you don't need to control the person, you just need to control their perception of reality.

Everything clever seems obvious once you already know it.

I encourage you to seek a better class of cleverness.

There are a bunch of clever things that I still have to remind myself exactly how they work. Several kinds of data compression come to mind.

Genius idea. Similar idea applies for iPhone's anonymous shipping packaging and plain envelope for credit cards -> reduce theft.

True, but they could reduce damage even more by putting a picture of a stained glass window and giant letters "HIGHLY FRAGILE DELICATE STAINED GLASS WINDOW! HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE!!" on it. That would certainly reduce damages further.

The problem is that it isn't one (a TV). Why would someone feel mortified if they accidentally drop a packaged bicycle from 2-3 feet (typical carrying height) when a fully assembled bike can be dropped from 2-3 feet, and this is packaged, so it should be even safer. On the other hand no one would feel free to drop a packaged LCD TV from even half a foot because people know it includes a giant pane of essentially glass, and they know that there are limits to what packaging can do.

So, yeah, by failing to meet expectations when it comes to packaging a bicycle, they can reduce damages by writing on it that it's a TV instead. All right.

But isn't this still them not meeting expectations exactly? If they write on it that it's a delicate stained-glass window, that would still be not meeting expectations. If the handler is the one with unreasonable expectations or behavior (if 2-3 feet isn't a reasonable drop height and should be considered a failure), then maybe educate the handler with some writing or warnings on the packaging.

isn't the real issue here that handler's expectations of bike packaging does not meet bike packaging's characteristics? so, you could tackle it head-one by writing care instructions.

alternatively, the article says only 70-80% reduction in damages was achieved. Maybe by lying and saying it is delicate stained-glass, handle with extreme care, they could up that to 95% reducted. I guess I've just saved them 15% of their former damages (even higher percentage of their remaining damages) with this one neat trick.

This isn't about customers dropping their own boxes, this is about shipping companies dropping boxes.

With the smallest bit of planning you can just never drop any box.

I honestly wouldn't expect a packaged bicycle to survive a 3 foot drop; the air in the tires does a lot of the work when you are riding it, in the package you might accidentally drop much of the load on a sensitive point or whatever.

I get that you are arguing they should package the bike to your expectations so that it shouldn't matter if you drop the package 3 feet onto the most sensitive point, but I wonder why you expect them to accurately read your mind instead of skimping on packing material.

I've probably dropped some tens of manufacturer-packaged bicycles 3-6 foot, they were practically all OK. Not that I would advocate such practice, it would be very risky. Each spring 3 of us would haul ~500 bikes into our shop storage over couple of days. The bikes are usually stored stacked up, 3 ontop vertically if you got the ceiling height[1]. Sometimes 3 vertical + 1/2/3 horizontal uptop, then you have to toss the last ones up there. End of a long day you get tired&sloppy, so sometimes one topple over or don't get all the way there...

1. http://www.camdencycles.co.uk/images/uploads/website%20Doc/b...

This makes me smile inside. Hacking at it's best.

Handwritten address, "Do the right thing" and "family sentimental heirlooms" might also work.

What a great idea, but this really feels like the kind of thing they should have kept quiet about.

Time to replace the humans in the logistics chain with robots.

Blogspam. Original: https://medium.com/vanmoof/our-secrets-out-f21c1f03fdc8

I saw that, but decided to go for the secondary source because they hugely improved the title. "Our secret’s out" is way less informative and, IMO, too much attention-seeking.

Yes, I could have tried to mix the new title with the original post, but I feared that would get changed back.

Also, in a sense, https://twitter.com/jasongay/status/772556605548326912 is the original, but that's "[citation needed]"

OK, we've updated the URL from http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/bike-manufac... but kept the title.

You're implying that medium.com is more than a blogspam site in the first place.

It seems like people who are responsible don't care anymore. Maybe it's the wages, the pressure or whatever. It looks like it's about time to replace even more humans from the equation.

I strongly contend that there very likely has not been a decline in the give-a-damn factor. My experience is that it really hasn't ever been too high. Just look at cartoons 50 years ago, and packages getting wrecked en route is a staple joke; the jokes were rarely obscure, but often topical. There is always a few great operators, but mostly you just fix you processes so people default to failure less. Hence hacks like the TV stamp.

But the answer is (as always) more automation. Mind, this can lead to really neat edge cases where you accidentally build a package smashing factory. But in general repeatability (machine) beats out diligence (people) every time.

You just have to, you know, pay for it. The cost benefit analysis probably strongly favors the marked box in this case.

Good luck trying to automate a system where the vehicle has to unload a package of anywhere from envelope size to a 90" TV. It has to bring this across a driveway of varying shape or size, or even no drive way at all, bringing it inside an apartment complex or condo. It has to realize the correct address or room, collect a signature, or realize that no human being is present to sign for it. Then it returns the item to the truck.

The sheer amount of variables that this would require, without error, would be ridiculous. UPS and other places tried to make the customer do it by storage lockers, and those failed. There's nowhere near any elegant form of solution to improve on that.

I think it likely that if we see a significant amount of automation in delivery, the last mile will eventually see it too.

Right now, my neighborhood has grouped mailboxes[1], and anything more than a semi-flat package will not fix. Small boxes that don't fit are delivered to the shared larger compartment, which is locked, and the key is then left in your mailbox. When you use the key, it does not come out of the shared compartment, so in retrieving your delivery the key is automatically returned. I don't see why this system can't be scaled up somewhat. Automated delivery to a shared compartment which can be designed to accommodate such a scenario would be significantly easier. Want direct to home delivery by a person? I'm sure the delivery companies can accommodate you with a special type of delivery[2]. Theft might be a problem, but since these are generally in neighborhoods next to houses, and setting up a camera would be simple (and undoubtedly pay for itself in some circumstances when people contend they did not get a package), I think it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

1: https://www.mailboxworks.com/images/af-12doorcbu-lrg.jpg

2: In truth, it would probably start with the automated to shared compartment delivery being a new option that's slightly cheaper. Eventually it would probably become the norm since it's cheaper.

Are there really enough individuals (not businesses) that want to-the-door delivery that it's even worthwhile?

My shipping experience is a constant fight to get them to hold the package for pickup because I'm not going to be home during their delivery hours (~9-5 Mon-Fri) and I don't want to wait four or five business days for them to make several delivery attempts before I go pick it up.

I'm waiting for Amazon to finish their locker network so they start to sell un-utilized capacity for this purpose. This strategy is why we have AWS.

Apart from the automated delivery, services like this exist.

I used one in Denmark last week. I received an SMS saying delivery would be the next day, but I could reply to request delivery to the drop off point in a nearby supermarket instead of at my home. I did this.

I received another SMS with a collection code. A keypad on the set of lockers opened the lock on one of them, and I collected the package at a perfectly convenient time.

http://www.swipbox.dk/

Oh you're right, of course. But part of the ridiculousness of industrial automation is that at some point all those variables will be catalogued and dealt with. A bit poorly I'd bet, but we'll certainly see it happen. It'll just take another few decades...

For the last 100 feet, yeah sure, you'll need someone to handle the package. But my box of PCI express network cards didn't get a boot print on it in the last 100 feet. My box of a replacement drum unit didn't get thrown about in the last 100 feet. Someone picking up a box and walking 50 feet with it usually isn't where shipping damage occurs.

I remember seeing 2 major-name delivery trucks parked back-to-back at a fast food restaurant. The drivers were transferring packages from one truck to the other. By transferring, I mean tossing them 10-20 feet in the air, and letting them land. Reminded me of Jim Carrey in Pet Detective. (This was several years ago.)

New idea for a game: Package Tycoon; give achievements and badges for successfully guiding the robot to deliver all your packages, and sit back while the kids do it for free!

Or wait, scratch that; how about Uber for packages. Bored at work? You could be delivering packages remotely to supplement your income!

I think it's only a matter of time before large scale data gathering service providers form a good-enough model of the environment in which they operate, to the point that the core service can be completely automated.

Uber for packages already exists (https://rush.uber.com/how-it-works)

They use "Earn on your own schedule" instead of "Bored at work?" as a slogan, though (https://www.uber.com/signup/drive/deliver/)

I have a feeling you'll need automation on the receiving end too.

Smarter mailboxes where you literally address the mail to an electronic physical mailbox, which digitally signs the receipt.

People care as much as they're paid and treated well to care.

And even then, they tend to be a little more fallible than they are trying to be.

It's true, especially when tired.

They also care as much as they think their ideas and creativity are actually being respected/rewarded.

Doesn't matter how much you pay someone if you make it clear at every point that you don't care what they think about trying to improve the job they do, then they'll adjust their enthusiasm accordingly. Or if trying to be better is used as a form of punishment i.e. "that's a good idea Barry, you can be in charge of implementing it without any change in pay or responsibilities!"

Oh god, that last line was chilling and all too familiar. I actually felt my heart-rate increase. There's nothing worse than being institutionally punished for having a good idea.

When the result is good it's always the managers or the owners that receive the credit, and now it's the workers that get the blame.

The wage for a UPS driver is somewhere around $11 an hour, with seasonal temporary help making less. Most of them are part time drivers, so they have to work a second job to make ends meet. Surprisingly, if you pay people crap and force them to look for new employment while working for you due to low wages, no hours, and poor advancement opportunities, you tend to get bad service. And if you rely on seasonal temps you WILL get bad service, as they have little loyalty to you beyond the month or two you pay them.

But no, first answer is always "remove people" I guess. Like you even can, no robot is going to be able to do a UPS job any time soon.

Huh. I actually find that figure really hard to believe.

17-ish years ago I got a temp seasonal job at one of UPS's air hubs, and they paid me $8 per hour. $8 in then-money is equivalent to more than $11 in now-money. So you're saying I was better paid as a seasonal temp than people who are much higher in UPS's pecking order than that are nowadays.

Now it being part time, yeah, I believe that. Pretty much everyone in that facility was working about 30h/wk.

Very possible. Median real wage growth (inflation adjusted) have been sluggish post recession, and considering the explosive rise in wages in certain knowledge sectors, that must be offset by negative real wage growth sectors elsewhere.

Yeah, but even beyond that, based on my understanding of the situation, $11/hr now would also mean that the nominal wage of drivers has also gone down over that same time period.

Source for those wages? Anecdote: I have several high school friends who drive/deliver for UPS, it's a union shop, they appear to be reasonably well paid (both own homes in typical middle-class neighborhoods, take vacations, etc).

They are pretty well paid, but it's probably not the drivers doing the damage. Drivers don't load their trucks.

That's definitely true. The trucks are loaded in the early AM, so the drivers can hit the road ASAP. Does make me wonder what surveillance systems are in place in the warehouse and loading areas? Or if that would even make a difference? I have no idea, never worked in a warehouse.

Quite likely they get damaged even before that, while they are on semi trucks (feeders). Assuming that loaders don't realize these are vulnerable to crush damage, they could get stacked on top of each other at the bottom of a loaded semi with moderately heavy stuff on top. Judging from boxed bikes I've seen, there is minimal or no padding, so this could easily result in damage. Not sure if it's official UPS policy, but it's much less likely for a presumably-expensive TV to end up stacked like that.

Surveillance - that's what supervisors are for. Really though, you have 800-1000 packages to load into 3-4 cars over 3-5 hours. When you have 20 of these bikes arrive on the conveyor belt in a 30 minute window and nowhere to put them (since it's hours from shift end and you can't put them in the delivery truck yet), they get dealt with fast and not so gently. That could easily mean a 3-4 ft drop onto concrete, and a supervisor would be unlikely to care since they know the pressure to go fast. The official policy is "hand to surface" for every package, but in reality you have to work at a pace where this is impractical - so it's ignored apart from egregious abuse of packages.

edit: as for discussion elsewhere here about proper packaging, here's FedEx guidelines/testing: http://www.fedex.com/us/services/pdf/PKG_Testing_Under150Lbs...

Some of the criteria, such as dropping the package 10x from a 30" height, might seem absurd if you haven't seen how the sausage is made. It really isn't.

I worked for ups about 5 years ago and i can for sure say that you are absolutely right about the hand to surface not being used due to package load. I still have friends that work there and now they have to scan packages before they pack them as well. Also the load has gone up. You generally have to load about 200 to 2800 packages over your shift. So its pretty much hell. They also blacklist you if you was seasonal and had to stop working for the company for any reason. So that lowers who can go back as well.

Huh, Google surfaces pages that claim it's nearly 3X that, $30/hour.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ups+driver+wage

I usually see UPS drivers cited as an example of a unionized, middle-class job.

Here's the current agreement between UPS and Teamsters: https://teamster.org/sites/teamster.org/files/6161478090_mas...

See articles 22, 40, and 41. $11 is current part-time package handler pay (preload), drivers are almost exclusively (with a few exceptions) full time employees, and max out at close to $30/hr. Locals can and do negotiate this higher, that's the national minimum. Also, a huge priority for the union is ensuring that UPS doesn't start using part time drivers instead of FT drivers.

Seasonals shouldn't make less, unless you're counting the $125 union initiation fee that everyone has to pay - a bit silly that it applies to them, probably a great money maker.

Their pay is what it is because of economics. And they will get replaced if they keep up with the poor service, because of economics. The worse your service, the easier it is for a robot to replace you. It's not possible for a individual, a corporation or even a government to go against economical forces.

Then again, don't get me wrong, I do think that the government needs to do more wealth redistribution.

Hey I don't care if you downvote me, but can you at least respond so I know why?

Isn't it also the incorporation of metrics into the delivery drivers schedules? As in, those trucks have been heavily wired with remote telemetry for everything, all of which goes to the local regional managers.

Who get told "we need an X% increase in productivity" - so they look at their metrics and come up with some idiot conclusion like "drivers just need to spend on average X seconds less per delivery...so I'm going to start measuring people by how long they're stopped making a delivery and have reviews when they are stopped too long".

Meanwhile, the delivery driver who has a route full of apartment buildings without easy truck access gets screwed.

Civil servants in developed countries are far from being paid crap yet they deliver the worst services ever.

This is rather about the workplace culture than the pay.

Yeah but could a robot deliver as good as this?

https://scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/142...

Can we replace you with a robot so I never have to read such an ignorant, inhumane comment again? Why don't we try treating low wage workers like their valuable, and give them more credit when they do a good job instead of their CEO's getting the big bonuses? You'd be amazed what people are capable of when treated right. If you still get losers smashing up boxes, fire them. By that point there will be a line of applicants waiting to do a better job, and the irresponsible worker can go and figure out why he or she got fired and do better next crack at it.

So sick of the endless chatter of this "automation utopia" here. It doesn't exist, it's not going to exist likely for hundreds of years, so lets turn the blind eye while the automaters rake in the profits and wages continue to stagnate for the next 40 years like they have the previous 40.

Why do you want people to have to work? A job automated is a person that doesn't need to work.

We live in a capitalistic system (surprise!) - You don't work, you don't eat. So if all tasks are automated, then only big companies make money and everyone else starves. But the big biz will save themselves by going overseas until they've harvested that money. In the end, it all doesn't matter anyways - "the rich will get richer and the poor, poorer."

It has nothing to do with me wanting people to work, but with people wanting to work.

Believe it or not, some people want to work. Many are raised on the principle of you need to work to eat, and will continue to raise their kids in this fashion for the unforeseeable future. Call it what you want, it is just the way some people live their life and find worth. We have to stop and ask ourselves why on earth would we want to even automate all work? It always goes down some utilitarian route, and I am saddened to see that this is the only ethical framework that has room in modern, capitalistic society.

> A job automated is a person that doesn't need to work.

False. A job automated is a person that a company doesn't need a worker for. There is a difference, in that now that person doesn't get paid. Company makes more money. This will be the situation until we reach the fabled "automation utopia" where all the essentials are taken care of such as food, shelter, water, travel, medicine, law, governance, and humans are left to frolic around to and fro. Until then, there will be hundreds of years of human suffering. Let's stop this endless pursuit to automate which is driven largely by profit, and focus our attention on solving human suffering. We have better things to be doing with our time than to figure out how to replace everyone's job.

It's also a whole attitude. I live in Japan now, and the wages here are just as shit and the pressure is if anything worse, but the service from the delivery companies is absolutely amazing.

A couple of years ago I shot footage of two UPS trucks exchange packages in my parking lot. They were tossing them out into a great heap on the ground, then going through them and tossing them back into the trucks. It was something like the day before Christmas, so I hope no one was expecting to have a fragile gift arrive intact. I suppose UPS is fine dong this, I think they say you should pack to survive a six foot drop, but it does give you second thoughts about shipping anything fragile, and I always assumed the six foot drops would be accidents.

When we make a new box, we throw it about 20 feet across the warehouse to simulate the UPS/Fedex treatment. As a manufacturer, I can assure you that they try really hard to not pay your damage claims unless it can survive that.

It would be great if someone could disrupt the duopoly of bad service.

Interestingly in Germany UPS has a good reputation (niche premium carrier). And it really seems that they handle packages better than our local carriers DHL, Hermes, DPD et al.

Probably it's just impossible to find enough good employees (for the salary they are willing to pay), and once you reach a certain scale, you will always face such issues.

> they handle packages better than our local carriers DHL

God DHL is such an utter shit-show, it's amazing.

> for the salary they are willing to pay

Yeah that tends to be a big issue, there isn't any positive incentive to care, and the "production" incentives (number of packages through) generally go the other way, wasting time treating packages carefully is a good way to not meet quota and get shit-canned. And let's not kid ourselves, consumers aren't generally willing to pay for expensive careful shipping either.

Well, if you really want to ensure they pay damage claims you must ship your packaged product to UPS Chicago testing facility (or approved ISTA testing facility) to get your Packaging approved to ensure it's adequate for the application.

I work in Packaging design and love problem solving. Any startups that need custom Packaging designed (design is usually free as value added service to get the mfg contract) feel free to PM me to discuss. I love to help/advise whether it becomes a mutually beneficial Business relationship, or a one sided help you only situation. ;)

how can you be contacted?

This isn't reddit, no PM:s here. You should put your email address in your profile

The email address in your profile is not public. It's used (I think) by HN mods if they need to contact you.

If you want your contact details to be public you need to put them into the "about:" box in your profile.

Also, password resets.

I worked at a distribution center for a large electronics retailer for 4+ years. It was my experience that a lot of those guys slinging boxes either didn't care, or just didn't have time to care. To the person who's been saving up for that $1200 4K TV, it's a big deal and having it come in damaged is incredibly frustrating and disappointing. To the guy loading his 3rd 58' trailer of his 10 hour shift in the middle of August - maybe not so much. You'd like to think your package is handled with the same care and pride that you would give it, but that's not the reality. Quotas, deadlines, bottom lines and the human condition just won't allow it.

> Quotas, deadlines, bottom lines

I guess companies can in some cases track damages backwards and add these to the quotas and bottom lines.

When I was 18 I worked for a few months on the assembly line at a Motorola manufacturing plant, assembling radio communication devices. It was a shit job with minimum wage and we had to meet strict quotas, but assembly errors were also counted, (the goal was "six sigma", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma).

Once defects were a priority as well, and they were tracked to a specific person (by means of a sticker on each assembly stage), people started to care.

BTW the only cool thing about it was that the company REALLY cared about improving efficiency and reducing errors, and anyone who would come up with an improvement to any process, would get a reward, that could be a lot of money in extreme cases. I suggested a very basic "hack" that saved the company $100 a month or so, and got a small gift and a certificate of excellence or some bullshit.

What was your hack?

It was really stupid. There were these LED 2-digit panels (something like this: http://bit.ly/2d9fa3a) that my job was to screw into the case.

Anyway, the connector cables were manually soldered to them at a nearby station, and the ladies who did the soldering used to just pile the LED panels in a box, and as a result some of them would get scratches on the visible part and had to be thrown away. At the same time, the speakers I would also screw-in, came in these grid-like trays, where each speaker was placed in a small rectangular cell.

My brilliant idea was to recycle these cardboard trays and have the solderers place the finished circuits in them, so they'd never damage each other. It saved 10-20 defected panels a month IIRC. Not enough to get me bonus, but enough to get me a cheap FM radio and a certificate.

A guy who worked there at the time optimized some circuit board printing procedure and saved the company IIRC like $100K a year (or was it a month?), and got a very big bonus.

I wonder if this works when flying :P

A picture of a bicycle works well then.

Most baggage is clothes etc, but the handlers understand a huge box with a bicycle drawn on the side.

(I've only flown twice with a bicycle. London Heathrow accepts a bike in a thick polythene bag, and SAS accept one with no bag at all. The bike wasn't damaged either time.)

Clever, but seems ethically questionable.

Why do the shippers care about breaking a TV? Presumably there are repercussions, such as an insurance plan. So why don't those repercussions just apply to bicycles? If they're fined for enough bikes being broken, they should probably learn that they need be more careful than they thought, right?

EDIT: Toning down my choice of words.

I don't think shippers are just about breaking a TV. I believe it comes down to the, perhaps, subconsciousness of "TV = fragile" whereas a box with a bike, something we expect to be pretty solid, doesn't seem like it would be damaged quite so easily.

Yeah, I get that. But it turns out that they're wrong. Are you suggesting that shippers try not to break things purely out of courtesy? Maybe, but I think incentives aren't aligned such that that can go a long way. With no other feedback, they want to get their job done quickly so that they can move on to the next, and get paid for moving more things.

If they're doing this purely out of courtesy, then yes, I could understand that being wrong about the fragility of bicycles could lead to such a disparity of broken things, since they pay no consequences for being wrong. However if there is a simple insurance policy, which I can only imagine any business would have with a shipping company, they are paying consequences for it, and they would have reason to learn, and try to treat bicycles a little more like televisions.

Apparently this isn't happening, but I don't understand why.

EDIT: I would add that the only explanation I have is that bicycles are less expensive than televisions. This implies that putting a television on the box leads the shipping company to believe that they have to put more time (aka money) into care for the box than they actually have to. This is what lead to my comment about fraud.

Shippers huck stuff around with little regard for the contents, particularly if they aren't blazoned all over with fragile/biohazard stickers. Fedex and UPS tend to be just about one-half step above the folks handling baggage at the airport, and how many times have you seen those people wing around suit-cases like they were throwing the hammer in the Olympics, and seeing just how far back they can toss from and still hit the conveyor belt?

If I had a nickel for every time I've had an Amazon purchase refunded or replaced because the delivery person smashed it to hell, or jammed it into a mailbox that was clearly too small, or left it out in the rain unwrapped, or even tossed it in the snowbank during a storm that dumped a foot and a half of snow and disappeared it until spring... I could probably buy a candy bar.

A solid example, with biting British commentary to boot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNq2xdvU_g

I'm reasonably sure that's a New Zealand accent.

(I'm British, so I know it's not British.)

The news stories identify the commentator as Australian

So you're saying that Amazon doesn't honor your insurance policy? I guess if that's generally true for shipping companies, and there's not much competition, that explains it. (in which case, tricking them into being more careful seems more ethically appropriate).

He said that they do honor it:

> ... If I had a nickel for every time I've had an Amazon purchase refunded or replaced because ...

> ...I could probably buy a candy bar.

Hah, looks like I forgot how expensive candy bars are. Okay I get it.

Strange. I've never had a damaged Amazon item in 100+ items.

There's a story I like to tell about Amazon shipping.. I often get standard sized boxes with a single air pillow or nothing at all protecting the smaller package inside. The latter is what happened when my friend ordered a phonograph needle and barbell weights. Smash, smash.

Weird. I get the opposite. Order a lightbulb. Get a package thats the size of 5 laptops stacked. I get thats its a lightbulb but sheesh...its LED & plastic...you could have drop-kicked that into my postbox and it would have been fine.

The only item I've ever had arrive damaged was a bike. The mudguards were badly bent out of shape.

Bizarre. Probably 90% of my purchases are through Amazon (mostly through laziness); according to my Amazon history (which you can download, it's fun to play with the data), I've had 1,018 deliveries over the last 17 years.

I literally can't think of more than maybe 1 or 2 in all that time that have ever been damaged.

Bikes cost as much or more than televisions these days almost across the board. Obviously the cheapest bikes cost less than the most expensive televisions, but a decent 50" flat panel is around 600$ USD now and an entry level road bike is maybe 750-800$?

The bikes that the average truck-loader comes in contact with cost $120.

Doubtful. The largest mail order bike companies are rather upscale. Look at Canyon, Planet X, Rose, Bikes direct, and others for a sampling of the most popular mail deliver bike companies. These aren't fly-by-night sketchy retailers either, Canyon bikes are ridden by many pro teams despite not having a storefront presence.

Absolutely, but I was speaking to the experience of the loaders.

Edit: Sorry, I should have made that clearer in my previous comment.

You mean the fully assembled ones they ride or see others riding, right? It took me a bit to figure out you meant that and not the ones in the boxes they handle. That might be the confusion.

Majority of bikes we sold at our shop cost around 200-300 USD for us to purchase (retail price would be around 2x that). This was in expensive Norway, and there were plenty of generic sports stores that sold bikes at down to 1/2 of what we did. So for to-retailer price in US, that 120 USD does not seem too crazy.

Don't forget that "good bikes" are actually very rare, especially if counted in volume (not price).

$120 would be the sale price of the bicycle, but presumably without sales tax since Americans don't include it when discussing price.

You can buy an adult mountain bike for £80 including 20% VAT in the UK. That's $100.

I've used one like this, it lasted less than 6 months of daily use before the sprockets, wheels, bearings and brakes were ruined.

http://www.tesco.com/direct/north-gear-rxt-mens-adults-mount...

The US's bizarre bike culture never stops surprising me. I guess since it's so impractical, it gets treated as a lifestyle instead of a method of transportation. I bought the most expensive bike of my life last month (automatic hub-powered LED lights!) and despite having to customize the saddle pole and handlebars to fit me, it was $250 (with a 2 year insurance and maintenance plan). $800 for an entry-level road bike???

It's not just the US. People here in London would happily spend four figures on their (ultralight aerodynamic) bike.

My perspective: I used to be like you and spend around $250. The bikes would break more easily (although maybe with an insurance/maintenance plan I would have been happier).

Meanwhile, everyone else spends four figures a year on transportation (driving costs about £1000 a year, the tube costs the same). I figured if I would buy an expensive bike once it would justify the cost over many years.

I bought a folding bike (a brompton) rather than a road bike - it cost around £900. They last for decades if treated right. So the cost, divided over the years of use, is negligible compared to other modes of transport.

My bike is worth probably 10x my TV. I'm not saying it's representative, but it's certainly not unusual for bikes to cost as much as or more than TVs.

Organizations are bad at communication. How do you disseminate that the information that "look guys, bicycles are fragile too" to ten of thousands of logistics workers?

This is an awesome hack, and it's a great way to fix behavior without having to collide with bureaucracy.

It's not ethically fraudulent because the shipper shouldn't be breaking anything. And I'm sure they do pay fees for what they break, and the shipping company is trying to do what it can fix that, but putting a picture of a TV on the box is still more effective than whatever the shipping company is trying.

I'm scared to think what else you would view as ethical fraud, if pictures-on-boxes qualifies. I tell baristas that I want "room for cream" in my Americano. But I never put cream in it--- I just want less volume so that when I walk I won't spill hot coffee on my hand. #EthicalFraud

Well I didn't say it was a huge deal necessarily. Just not totally clean. Perhaps fraud was a bad choice of words and I changed it. And I agree it's a very interesting hack.

I don't necessarily agree that a shipper shouldn't be breaking anything. I think that they should meet whatever the agreement was. If the agreement is "we'll try super hard not to break stuff" and they're clearly not holding up their side of the bargain when it comes to bikes, then sure, changing the picture is fair game. If the agreement is "we'll pay for anything that breaks", then they should determine how careful they want to be, since they're footing the bill for it. Making that determination for them by changing the picture, I think is not totally honest, unless they also have a history of not paying up.

I think it's ethically questionable to carelessly break things people are waiting for just because the thing is perceived to have low monetary value. The shipping company may have to eat the dollar cost of the item, but the cost to the sender and receiver in time and hassle is non-negligible.

I don't think it's about the monetary value. Your typical bike is more expensive than your typical TV (but your average shipping guy might think all bikes cost like the super-market ones)

I think it's just the perception that bikes are "rough" and that they can take a beating. Which is true, but only when fully assembled and driven on road/terrain, not when you bang at it from the side.

> I think is not totally honest, unless they also have a history of not paying up.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. So: Does their agreement say that the bike company will accurately represent their product on their packaging? If the bike company's holding up their end of whatever agreement they have, then there's nothing the least bit questionable about what they're doing.

> How do you disseminate that the information that "look guys, bicycles are fragile too" to ten of thousands of logistics workers?

A 3 paragraph email.

My apologies if I failed to detect humor here. But in my experience a 3 paragraph email usually get's the message to about 10% of the audience. The other 90% will either not read it, read it but not take it very seriously, maybe they take it seriously at first, but then the effect wears off, etc. Especially if there are dozens of competing memos going out each month.

A photo of a TV on the side of the box tells the worker right then and there that this is both expensive and delicate, handle with care. It does it more than even "FRAGILE" does, because that's been abused to death already.

I suppose if everybody starts claiming their boxes are TVs, then the effect will wane as well. But this is way more effective than an easily-ignored memo.

Sarcasm? Reading comprehension for emails is so bad. And these are blue collar workers that you're targeting. If anything I'd have it be an item in a weekly team meeting, but don't you think these workers are _always_ hearing the same thing? "Hey guys, HQ said we need to break less stuff. I know we're only at 0.2% breakage but corporate says we can do better." They probably don't really give a shit, or are already doing their best, and the picture on a box targets their subconscious.

If they were already doing their best, a picture on the side of the box wouldn't improve their performance.

It sure would. When "their best" is some tradeoff between speed and care.

If the workers treat every single package as if it were a Ming Dynasty vase, then their throughput will drop through the floor and that won't be their best.

If they treat every single package as if it were a box of rocks, then their breakage rate will skyrocket. That also won't be their best.

Putting the TV on the side of the box tells the worker to slide the scale closer to avoiding breakage and away from moving fast.

^ Couldn't have said it better. Best != perfect, it's always some kind of Nash equilibrium that makes the best tradeoffs available.

By your own hypothesis, putting the picture on the side of the box leads to worse performance, not better performance.

It leads to slower handling time on that package, and greater care for that package. Going back to the original comment in this thread, it does so in a way that's far more effective than a policy email would. It's not clear that the overall performance is degraded or enhanced by this technique.

Your concern can be addressed by printing a photo of a TV with a bicycle show on TV. Then, the recipient will also not be confused.

Most things arrive fully assembled. With that TV you just plug it in and that is it. You don't have to adjust the HDMI sockets with a screwdriver or double check the earth lead is correctly bolted on. You don't have to get a spanner out to adjust that five degree tilt to one side in the base.

But with a bicycle, it is an entirely different story. The seat is not centered on the rails, nice and level. Much has to be assembled and that is understandable, however, the brakes and the gears rarely work as well as Shimano intended. The bike is part assembled and the consumer is left to do the rest. Rarely is the finished result as polished as the fit and finish that the TV arrives with.

If a bicycle manufacturer jost got that final assembly together so that only seat height adjustment was needed with nothing else needing a double check, then they might be able to sell to the end customer properly. As it is there is no quality in the final delivery, bikes sent to the customer will be far from expertly 'tuned'.

If the consumer doesn't want to assemble it himself he can take the package to his local bike shop (or order it through them). They will also give you a "tuning" if you want.

It's sort of like IKEA furniture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com