United Parcel Service Logistics

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United Parcel Service is the world's largest shipping corporation. It operates in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Founded in 1907, UPS has grown tremendously over a century of its existence. As of 05.19.2014 their shares in NYSE is at $ 101.30 per share. 

Regardless of its tremendous growth, the question arises on how UPS managed to master its logistics and become synonymous to the term "Logistics" itself. This paper will focus on how UPS Logistics works and how it is similar to what we have learned at our classrooms. 

UPS prides itself in its ability to ship packages within the next day anywhere in the United States. If one takes a closer look at how the logistics in UPS works, one will understand that their claims are backed with a power string of strategically placed assets that enables such an endeavor. To summarize this complex system, let us take an example of a simple package that a customer wants to ship. This package is dropped off at a UPS Store by the customer. The store determines proper packaging for the item and inputs information on the shipping label. This label includes several information, but from these the ones that we shall analyze, will be: the destination zip code, size and weight. As soon as the store associate enters this information to create a shipping label, this information is passed to the main database of UPS. The UPS database communicates this information to the local hub which plans the pickups of such items. The data of size and weight of each individual package that arrive from the stores gives the hub controller an estimate of which truck is en route to the store. It also gives the controller the ability to direct more trucks to a prior to the main pickup to ensure all packages are picked up from the location, for further processing. 

Once the package is picked up by the driver, it is driven to the local hub. UPS hubs are generally located near the airport of the city that they are located in. In this phase, the hub employee unloads the truck and sorts the items according to their size and weight and loads them onto a state of the art design belt. These belts move fast and take the packages through various scanners which determine its destination and the type of service requested for delivery. Ground shipments are loaded onto the trailers for the trucks to haul them to the World Port, whereas air shipments are kept in special compartments that are delivered to the UPS airplanes to the World Port. World port is the headquarters of UPS's fleet. It is one of the largest package sorting hubs in the world. From here, the packages are sorted and delivered to its destination zip code. Once the package reaches its destination zip code, it is sorted at the destination hub and loaded onto UPS trucks for delivery. UPS employees work round the 24/7 to ensure the delivery of the packages.