October 26, 2005

Do You Move Packages? Learning From UPS.

UPS is a HUGE business that would appear to only SELL to smaller businesses. However, this GIANT is constantly improving how they move a package from A to B. If you deal with package logistics in your small business, there is a lot you can learn.

Cnet writes The company is more than halfway through a $600 million plan to build a suite of software and hardware products that it hopes will save it a similar amount annually when fully in place by 2007. Included in that cost is not just the purchase and development of new technology, but the price of buying new equipment and building extra conveyer belts at each of UPS' more than 1,000 sorting facilities nationwide.

Mark Hopkins, a UPS vice president and head of the team implementing the overhaul, says the goal of the new system is to shave minutes off the time it takes to deliver each package. Spread across the entire organization UPS believes the system, called "package flow technology," will save it 100 million miles annually, a reduction of about 14 million gallons of fuel and 130,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

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