UPS, Atlanta, Ga., has unveiled a new package of flow technologies to handle unique or unusual delivery instructions and more customized time commitments.

The new system will enable customers to make in-transit changes on package deliveries.
The new system is built around a “smart label” affixed to packages moving through the UPS network. More than 90% of UPS customers generate these labels on their premises. Information from the label is transmitted to UPS before the package is picked up by a driver. Address information on a package is pre-processed and corrected if necessary before arrival of the package at the sorting center.
Advance information more completely automates two key processes: planning the daily delivery route and loading each vehicle.
Currently, truck loaders must learn hundreds of addresses or ZIP codes for each delivery area. With the new software, each package arrives with specific instructions on where it should be placed inside which delivery vehicle. UPS can produce a dispatch plan for every UPS driver prior to any packages being handled by center employees.
As a result, the driver’s deliveries are known before the start of the loading process. Last-minute changes to a driver’s load are minimized. The software features advanced geographic tools that allow package center planners to analyze and adjust dispatch plans to further optimize delivery.
The driver can view all packages in delivery order, indicating exactly where the packages are loaded in the truck. This reduces time needed to select packages and miles required to complete deliveries.
Information flows to the driver’s wireless, handheld computer -- now in its fourth generation -- alerting the driver as delivery time commitments near and warns if a package is scanned that isn’t supposed to be delivered at the current stop.
According to UPS, testing and initial deployment suggest the company can reduce mileage driven by delivery trucks by more than 100 million miles each year. That would save the company 14 million gallons of fuel and reduce CO2 emissions by 130,000 metric tons annually.
UPS expects service enhancements full deployment in the U.S. is completed in 2005.