Training in Luxembourg

The management of Luxembourg Post visited us in Freienstein. We showed our products, visited the Swiss Post together, assembled our DXP especially according to their requirements and at the end of the visit they ordered the first 35 vehicles. Especially the technical manager Felix Schmol, was interested in the details of the technical design of our DXP. He was convinced that he could maintain the vehicles himself with his technicians. On another visit, he took his two technicians with him and we trained them to be able to do all the maintenance on the vehicles themselves. Six months later, I met Felix at a trade fair in the middle of Germany and I enquired how they were satisfied with the DXP. The vehicles were not the problem, but the drivers had a lot of accidents and did not really feel safe with them. What could we do? I suggested to Felix that one of our teams come to Luxembourg and we do driver training together. Felix was enthusiastic. His two technicians would support us. We discussed some details and agreed on a day to do the training.

I asked in the company who would like to come along to Luxembourg and so Francesco, Carmen, Flurin and I got into our Passat and drove to the headquarters of the Luxembourg Post on the eve of the event. The technicians had set up a course. First we could train, then there was a driving competition. They had to drive backwards with the trailer, do a slalom in the fastest possible time, brake precisely on a line, distribute mail into different mailboxes, take curves at maximum speed and much more. The driving training was a lot of fun and the drivers happily started to gain confidence in our DXP and to control it safely. We at KYBURZ were the instructors for all the riders and we had the task of supervising the parkour. The driving area was on a construction site. At the end of the driving training, I was allowed to show what the DXP could do and ploughed through the thickest mud, curved up a small road onto a large rubble hill and back down again over all the rubble directly in front of the audience. This route could not have been driven on by a car and all those present were correspondingly thrilled. I was especially thrilled that the helpers from the post office cleaned all the dirty vehicles and instead we were able to present all the participants with a certificate, our polo shirt and the obligatory Toblerone. At the end of the event, everyone was enthusiastic and satisfied. Later, on the way home, we exchanged ideas about what we had experienced. Flurin remarked that there was only one person he didn't like at all, always negative, always critical, who he would have fired immediately if it had been his company. I explained to Flurin that this was not possible because the person was in the trade union and was there as an observer.
Our action was a complete success.

From then on, the drivers mastered our DXP and they were very efficient in delivering the mail - too efficient, in fact. About three years later, Felix Schmol called me: The whole management had been dismissed, except him. Why was that? With our DXP, the Luxembourg Post would have sent unskilled postmen on their way and they had such a good grip on their vehicle that they were more efficient than the salaried postmen. As a result, the union had removed the entire management and entrusted him with the task of selling the entire DXP fleet. In the discussion we came to an agreement: we bought back the 35 DXP and delivered 35 of our eTrolley to them, which was clearly the worse solution for them, but Felix had no room for negotiation. When I met him, Felix was an old hand in his business. He knew all the technology, the software and the sorting equipment inside out and he also had all the freedom to maintain the products and keep them in use in the best possible way. After this change, he was no longer allowed to decide anything, he was only allowed to carry out what the new management decided. The Post, formerly a model company, was no longer the same. They still use our eTrolleys today.

Lesson learned:

• Driver training can be entertaining, enjoyable and educational.
• Driving a DXP over a hill of rubble is great, especially when it is cleaned up afterwards by other people.
• It is not always immediately clear how decisions are made in a group and for what motivation.