[Swnorth] deliver route testing update

[Hutchinson, Judy]

My apologies that we have not been in communication with you for a few days.   I wanted to give you a brief update on where we are with testing and the changes coming in the next few weeks for the Shorewood hub delivery routes.

For the most part, everything we have been testing for the Shorewood hub routes has gone well.  Our new larger vehicles are going to allow us to go from 4.25 routes to 3.3 routes (based on total hours) once the dust has settled on all the changes.  We have made some additional minor changes where necessary to ensure that our routes make sense geographically.  We are continuing to test various minor things these first few days of this week.

We have found that it is very difficult and I know very confusing for all involved to test switching libraries to different routes or hubs or place in the route, and then switch them back for a few days while we try something different.  You have all been very patient with us as your delivery times have varied, drivers, etc., and we appreciate it.

To ease this confusion, we have begun the steps this week to move to final implementation of the new routes in Shorewood earlier than we previously announced.  As has been announced, for those libraries that are switching hubs to the Coal Valley or Rockford hub, we will be switching their codes in PrairieCat this week.  Once that occurs on Wednesday, then we plan to run the new routes in a test mode on Wednesday and Thursday, and if all goes well, announce the final new route configurations on Friday.  We will then continue with the new routes rather than switching back to the old route configurations for just a week, and then switching back.  For those of you who are losing days of delivery, that will not occur until the week of September 8 as earlier promised.

If you have any questions, please contact me or Shirley Grasty, your Shorewood hub supervisor (shirleyg at palsnet.info<mailto:shirleyg at palsnet.info>; or ext 2706).

Judy

Judy Hutchinson
Administrative Services Manager
Prairie Area Library System
220 W. 23rd Ave, PO Box 125
Coal Valley, IL  61240

judyh at palsnet.info<mailto:judyh at palsnet.info>
309-799-3155, x 3150
877-LIB-PALS

www.palsnet.info