One of the reasons it "Takes So Long" to get our bids run and done, is they are actually run, re-run and run some more, using different thresholds, (min line values) until they get the stacks down to what is agreed upon with DALPA, re. reserves available, etc.

If we just let the company run each category once, and post it, they would all be done in 1-2 days...but anyone in the bottom half of their category wouldn't like the results! There would be a whole lot of unstacking, shuffling, etc. and nearly -zero- open time left over, that's what the Company would like.

And then they would want to reduce the reserve manning in every category, since there would be very little open time left after the initial run. That's why we only agreed to PBS -IF- a DALPA team was allowed to check the runs, and make changes to the runs, and re-run them.

I was on the original PBS Quality Control Committee when we first got PBS about...6 (?) years ago. Our "Job" was to check each run the company sent over to us (via email) check the stack heights, reserves available, unstacked percentages, etc. If we didn't like the run, we would ask the company to run it again, using different parameters. It is tedious and mind numbing work, it took 5 long days and about 200 emailed runs, from 8am to 11pm, that's why I finally got out.

But the guys who do it (Quality Control) every month are very good at it, and they will gladly help you with your bids, come Xmas time, all you have to do is call and ask. John Bell and Adam Zaret were there at the beginning and still doing it, they are two of the best if you can get ahold of them, but there are other very good guys too.

Even though I think I know how to bid, I still call them when I need something weird, and/or there's a holiday involved, or both in the same month, and have one of them look it over before I hit Submit.