Quote:
Originally Posted by LeineLodge
What is ACE providing currently besides an app UI to accept reports and a queue’d ticketing system?
How is it $1.3M better specifically than any other off the shelf ticketing system?
I keep hearing about all this automation it has but then others say that part isn’t turned on. Why don’t we* start paying the big bucks when it starts providing the big value?
*no argument that Delta should be footing the bill for this nonsense
Off the shelf
does. not. exist. Do you think a Fortune 500 company just gives access to proprietary data to anyone? Do you think they give give server access to just anyone? Then, once you get accecss to that data, what are you supposed to do to protect it? Accredations in the IT world don't come cheap.
It's not that ACE is especially unique, per se. However, ACE is uniquely tailored to the
pilots vs towards the company or even ALPA. But there’s
way more behind the scenes that creates value. The combination of increased awareness by the pilots (resulting in a mountain of reports vs before ACE, which enabled reporting of a mountain of violations), plus desktop software used by the union to process that information (which previously took
10x+ the amount of time per violation), is part of the value. Plus, due to company data access in the new contract (influenced by 5S, OBTW), lots of the reporting can soon be automated. Auto-ID has been part of the vision from the start (and could have been turned on over a
year ago if the MEC admin was doing its job) 5S turned it "on" on their way out on their own. ACE stands for Automated Contract Enforcement. All that comes at a legitimate cost.
If y'all want to go back to not knowing what's going on, and reporting potential violations via email, plus the ALPA being unable to efficiently process potential violations (i.e. go back to only recovering ~$3M/yr vs ~$20+M/yr), then ACE isn’t worth it. Or worse, get something that really IS a glorified spreadsheet, programmed by a dude in India... I submit the money ALPA has invested is worth every penny. ACE has literally changed company behavior.
Again, I'm all for the company having to foot the bill to ensure they follow their own contract. (But I again submit we do not want the company controlling ACE, we want ALPA controlling it). Put it on the list of 'asks' for C26.