Using Handhelds at UPS

A new handheld, the Delivery Information Acquisition Device (DIAD) IV, is UPS’s counterpart to FedEx’s PowerPad. Functionally, the DIAD IV is analogous to the PowerPad, except the 70,000 handhelds transmit the data directly to UPS using a digital cellular connection. Several years ago, FedEx installed cellular transmitters in its trucks to send package data.They chose to keep that infrastructure and simply switched to Bluetooth radios to connect the handhelds to the trucks. UPS used direct connections in its previous DIAD III handhelds and saw no reason to drop the direct connection from the handheld to the central UPS operations.

UPS will deploy Bluetooth in its new handhelds to enable applications such as processing customer credit cards within buildings where GPRS cellular signals may be blocked and time card reporting within UPS facilities as well. UPS is also studying the capability of Bluetooth to facilitate time and motion studies, such as monitoring the number of times a driver opens a door or exits and enters the vehicle. Supplementing the new DIAD IV with Bluetooth is a small, incremental cost, says John Killeen, UPS’s director of global network services, but well worth adding?even before a definitive use is found.

UPS also expects to implement GPS satellite-based tracking systems in its DIAD IV, so couriers can provide better customer service. For example: A package could be rerouted in transit, so if a customer calls with a last-minute request to change the delivery address, a geospatial application could help the driver find the most efficient route to the new location, says Killeen.

Sorting Facility Deployments

Behind the friendly courier you see every day is a massive operation of package centers, sorting facilities and hubs through which packages travel. For example, FedEx’s main hub in Memphis, Tenn., handles about 2 million packages a day in a group of runways and buildings that take up about 1.5 square miles and make the Memphis airport the number-one cargo airport in the world. UPS’s Worldport hub in Louisville, Ky., has a similar scale. Even a small facility, such as the Richmond, Calif., UPS sorting facility (which is one of the first to receive the new scanning systems), is a stadium-size maze of belts and funnels through which packages move as they are unloaded from trucks and trains onto other trucks and trains for transshipment. For both UPS and FedEx, wireless technology has improved operational speed and accuracy.

The business challenge for both companies is to reduce the cost of sorting. In the sorting facilities, both companies use a device called a ring scanner, which is a bar code reader mounted on two fingers and wired to a terminal strapped to the forearm.