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UPS has a new navigation system for its 60,000 drivers.
- UPSNav makes life easier for delivery drivers, but it also has the potential to reduce expenses by $ 15 million a year, said Juan Perez, UPS's director of information and engineering, at Business Insider.
- The new system follows UPS 'surge in technology in recent years, which also includes a push for drone delivery and automated parcel facilities.
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UPS has not hesitated to invest in technology in recent years. Titan Delivery is investing millions of dollars to increase its parcel sorting capacity from 2017 to 2020, thanks to several new or renovated automated sorting facilities. This equates to approximately 400,000 additional parcels sorted per hour.
And UPS also plunges into drone deliveries of medical supplies and samples. He makes five to ten deliveries of drones around the WakeMed Medical Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina – reducing the transit time required to transport vital survival gear from 30 minutes to just over three minutes.
These investments were made in very specific technological sectors, such as automation and drones, as well as in seemingly more bbad areas. In an interview last week with Business Insider, Juan Perez, UPS's director of information and engineering, highlighted a new tool to save millions of packages: a new navigation system tailored to its drivers.
Mark Lennihan / AP
UPS drivers make an average of 120 stops per day. Optimizing their itineraries is therefore essential to save money. Less driving means less money spent on gasoline and vehicle repairs. It also means more time to deliver parcels and less time stuck in traffic.
In total, UPS can save up to $ 15 million a year if each driver could travel one and a half kilometers of their route each day. Some drivers travel up to 200 miles in a single day.
This is not the first time that UPS calls the many activities of drivers to save money. In the early 2010s, UPS is installed in the left turns. Now, only 10% of turns are on the left, a decision that the company says helps them transfer 350,000 more parcels a year.
Read more: UPS has just defeated Amazon, FedEx and Uber for the first UAV delivery generating revenue in America
As for day-to-day navigation, UPS drivers have used "tribal knowledge," said Perez. But the best route is constantly changing due to traffic, construction, weather conditions and a host of other headaches.
Commercial mapping applications were also commonly used, but they are also not ideal. "If you connect the address to the New York Stock Exchange, this tool will drop you to the front of the building," Perez said. "But in the case of UPS, it does not help us, we need to know where drivers have to go to collect and deliver."
Hollis Johnson / Business Insider
By the end of 2018, some 20,000 UPS drivers have adopted a tool called UPSNav. By the end of 2019, up to 50,000 drivers will use the UPS owner application. (All 60,000 UPS drivers do not need the system, Perez said. Drivers who work in dense urban areas may park their truck on a block all day, but those in rural or suburban areas may need a full day of guidance.)
It is an update of a six year old technology called Integrated Road Optimization and Navigation (ORION). ORION has provided drivers with the optimal organization of their stops.
UPSNav now offers detailed navigation based on information available at the beginning of the day. It will soon also be updated throughout the day depending on traffic developments.
Read more: The net profit of a trucking company has dropped from $ 2.5 million to $ 1,000 – and it's still a frightening sign of trucking's "bloodbath"
UPS developed the solution in-house with support for third-party products, which UPS did not share the name. The company also relied on its own drivers to create the tool.
"Even though I'm a technologist and I believe in the value of technology in our society, I can tell you that technology works better at UPS when we supplement drivers' vast knowledge with the technology we provide them." said Perez.
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