RELO Roundtable…a gathering place

Some visitors may notice that Daycos News, the popular blog of the The Day Companies, has returned to the blogroll in the far right column. I didn't realize I'd inadvertently removed the link when trying to fix a design problem until a reader asked why it wasn't there anymore.

Since then it appears that third party billing company's entire web presence has undergone a sort of social networking metamorphosis. They've redone their entire website, updated their RSS feed, and started tweeting. The results are impressive – especially their household goods billing demos using their AccuBill applications. 

Daycos has been helping their customer find money by offering invoicing, post-audit, and related services to transportation companies in the household goods moving industry for over 30 years. The Nebraska based company was originally started by Brandon Day's father as John Day and Associates in Washington, DC in 1978.

I first met John in 1995 at an industry meeting in northern Virginia. The powwow was called to discuss the military's plans to 're-engineer' their domestic and international household goods procurement process using world-class standards and quality measurement tools.

In a huge room filled with grumpy, suspicious ol' timers, John was one of the few participants representing transportation service providers who was genuinely intrigued by the new idea. Initially he'd become involved with the moving industry because of discrepancies he noted on invoices incorrectly paid on completed Department of Defense (DOD) moves. I'll never forget. He smiled through the whole meeting.

Since then Daycos has been actively involved in the discussion, planning, and development of each test phase of the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command's (formerly the Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC)) defense personal property procurement program (DP3) for service members undergoing a permanent change of station (PCS) move.

The backbone of the DP3 program (once known as Families First), is the Defense Personal Property System (DPS). Its 'best value' database was designed to automate, simplify and raise the 'quality' bar on the entire PCS move process using world-class standards. Those involved in its development, however, will tell you that the 15-year-old project has been a true test of patience and an expensive leap of faith for many members of the military services and industry partners actively involved in administration of the complicated program.

Nowhere is Daycos expertise more apparent than in an recent video that the International Association of Movers (IAM) produced. The discussion reflects the objectives covered in their two new DPS Services products. 

DPS Work-Arounds is an hour long panel discussion taped at IAMs 2009 Annual Meeting specifically designed to assist members working with DOD's DPS software. It's one of six informative clips that IAM included in their KNOWLEDGE LAB Video Presentations page hosted on Vimeo.

These types of publicly viewable videos are fantastic educational resources for industry members who either don't have the financial resources to attend their association's state or national conventions or can't afford to leave the office because of staffing considerations. They also make great recruiting tools when soliciting for donations or new memberships.

Too bad they couldn't include the exhibits that were an integral part of Linda Bauer Darr's Challenges of US Movers presentation. The President & CEO of the American Moving and Storage Association talked about some of the hurdles facing AMSA members and detailed their new ProMover certification program designed to promote ethical principles for the moving and storage industry.

The thirty minutes explanation is worth listening to even without the visual aids. Hope AMSA uses some of the same type of videography during their upcoming meeting in Phoenix in February. It'd be a great value added benefit that many members and displaced industry veterans could use right now.