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The drones are coming – Fleet Owner

By on October 15, 2018 in Industry News, UPS News

Unmanned aircraft can help with package deliveries, yard and depot surveillance, traffic management, and more. How are drones being used and tested today, and what does it mean for delivery drivers?

While testing remains in the early stages, this past summer the company received a patent for product-distribution warehouses that float in the sky and are carried and held aloft by blimps. It is part of Amazon’s plan to move toward more drone deliveries from ground-based shipments.

The floating warehouses, or aerial fulfillment centers (AFCs), “may be positioned at an altitude above a metropolitan area and be designed to maintain an inventory of items that may be purchased by a user and delivered to the user by a UAV that is deployed from the AFC,” the patent document said.

Elsewhere, UPS in early 2017 made a successful delivery by drone in partnership with Workhorse, an Ohio manufacturer of the unmanned aircraft as well as electric and hybrid electric vans and pickups.

UPS’s New Atlanta Super Hub Showcases Next Generation Operating Facility

By on October 15, 2018 in UPS Press Release

  • Strategically located 1.2 Million square-foot regional sortation and distribution center the second largest in UPS U.S. network; will sort 100,000 pieces per hour
  • New operation streamlines processing and expands capacity for rapidly growing package volume throughout the Southeast U.S.
  • Advanced scanning and sortation technology integrate with data-driven tools to increase efficiency and service reliability
  • Area business and retail customers gain speed to market from UPS connectivity to regional transportation infrastructure

Before Black Friday, UPS To Hold Nationwide ‘UPS Brown Friday’ Hiring Events

By on October 15, 2018 in UPS Press Release

  • One-day hiring blitz on October 19 part of UPS’s larger effort to hire about 100,000 seasonal employees
  •  Nearly 170 job fairs across the country; anticipate signing up nearly 40,000 in one day

UPS (NYSE: UPS) announced today that it expects to sign-up nearly 40,000 seasonal employees this Friday, in a one-day hiring blitz it’s calling ‘UPS Brown Friday’.

UPS’s $20 Billion Problem: Operations Stuck in the 20th Century – Wall Street Journal

By on October 14, 2018 in UPS News

In the sticky Southern heat, hundreds of workers streamed in for the 11 a.m. shift last month at United Parcel Service Inc.’s local package-sorting facility, one of dozens nationwide that help it move millions of parcels daily.

In a windowless room, a 30-year-old analog control panel about the size of a chest freezer monitors operations, with rows of green and red lights indicating when something goes awry in the building’s web of conveyor belts.

“Thirty years ago, this was top-notch,” UPS plant engineering manager Dean Britt said of the control panel. Today, the panel’s computing capabilities “can probably fit on your phone,” he said, “and not even a good phone.”

The site, and other similar UPS facilities, haven’t automated much over decades—despite a rush of new warehouse technology in many industries. Today, the company is paying a price.