Slashdot Mirror
How UPS Delivers Faster Using $8 Headphones and Code That Decides When Dirty Trucks Get Cleaned (technologyreview.com)
With Amazon's imminent plans to launch a low-cost package delivery service, UPS is about to face intense competition from a company with top customer-tracking capabilities and even artificial-intelligence expertise. To tackle it, the company is turning to advances analytics. From a report: In 2016, it began collecting data across its facilities. Today there are about 25 projects based on that data, grouped under the acronym EDGE (which stands for "enhanced dynamic global execution"). The program has sparked changes in everything from how workers place packages inside delivery trucks in the morning to how the vast army of temporary hires that UPS recruits during the busy holiday season are trained. Eventually, data will even dictate when UPS vehicles get washed. The company expects to save $200 million to $300 million a year once the program is fully deployed.
[...] Another project tells seasonal workers where to direct the outbound packages that UPS vehicles pick up throughout the day and bring to the company's sorting facilities. UPS hires nearly 100,000 of these workers from November through January. Typically, these people would need to memorize hundreds of zip codes to know where to place parcels, but last winter UPS outfitted about 2,500 of them with scanning devices and $8 Bluetooth headphones that issue one-word directions, such as "Green," "Red," or "Blue." The colors correspond to specific conveyor belts, which then transport the packages to other parts of the building for further processing.
[...] Another project tells seasonal workers where to direct the outbound packages that UPS vehicles pick up throughout the day and bring to the company's sorting facilities. UPS hires nearly 100,000 of these workers from November through January. Typically, these people would need to memorize hundreds of zip codes to know where to place parcels, but last winter UPS outfitted about 2,500 of them with scanning devices and $8 Bluetooth headphones that issue one-word directions, such as "Green," "Red," or "Blue." The colors correspond to specific conveyor belts, which then transport the packages to other parts of the building for further processing.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
This is just the halfway point between human based systems and total automation. Right now, the computers are the brains and the humans are the brawn. After they have the brains part worked out, they'll start replacing the brawn with robots. If they are this far advanced into automation then they are already working on the robotic component.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
1- smart glasses: when someone look at a package label, embedded camera automatically scan the code and the glasses show the color or a guiding arrow or something
2- robots: robotic arm, automatic label scan, pick and launch or drop
3- profit!
To me it seems like the biggest problem UPS has, is that they are the worst at understanding where a package is in their system.
At this point I've had four or five packages shipped via UPS that essentially "disappeared" within the system, some of them packages with over $1k worth of camera gear. I eventually got all of them, but sometimes up to a week after the expected delivery date - even though I had opted for two-day shipping.
Also going to a distribution center to pick up packages from both FedEx and UPS, UPS had by far worse facilities kept up facilities. Basic building maintenance can say a lot about the quality of other aspects of operation.
I will say UPS drivers seem actually really good and are often pushed to what seem like absurd hours. So that part of the system seems OK, it's more the internal aspects which at least are probably easier to fix than a bad driving network.
You can only make use of analytics, if the data you can feed to the analytics is sound...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Perhaps the high speed bypasses for the Elven elite that the Boring company is drilling will be repurposed as underground caves for housing the jobless after no has to drive to work anymore.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
it's the human ones that worry me. Especially when they don't need me anymore. They don't need me to buy their crap if they've got robots to do everything for them and they own everything anyway.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How many people from your country have walked on the moon, Yurofriend?
Pickup package, scan sticker, place on designated belt. Why are they looking at people for this? A robot can do that tirelessly pretty much forever.
McDonalds, for instance, has long been trying to remove any skill from any of its restaurant jobs. The cash registers even have pictures of the "food" on them.
It's a shame this Q guy never learned to speak in clear, complete sentences. It's almost as if the goal is to be purposely vague so people can apply confirmation bias after something happens.
Thank you, Wernher von Braun.
McDonalds, for instance, has long been trying to remove any skill from any of its restaurant jobs. The cash registers even have pictures of the "food" on them.
So we can create skilled employment by removing the pictures from the cash registers?
Fuck off Porter.
RPS(started as Roadway Package System and now known as FexEx Ground) forced UPS to change way back in the 80s.
The guys behind it at Roadway looked and UPS and figured that there must be some serious profit if UPS could afford to wash their trucks EVERY DAY.
Old News.
You can thank Von Braun and the other paperclip scientists who provided the brains.
The Americans provided the trained monkeys.
If you had the kind of turnover problem that McDonald's has, you'd do about anything you can to improve training time as well. Bright side of this is that if the person taking your order is slow (because it's their first day) you can lean over the counter and help.
Von Braun was an american you silly git.
BTW how's the German moon shot coming along?
As much as I fear world domination by Amazon, I predict ups and FedEx being forced into niche markets, the ones that Amazon let's them have.
Von Braun, a name as American as Apfel Pie.
Yes, it's the Proper German spelling. As Von-Braun is German.
Again, Germans provided the solid engineering foundation, the Americans provide, and continue to provide a supply of Trained Monkeys.
It's now the Russians that send the Americans into space.
There's no such thing as an american name, dumbass. You're speaking about a nation built through immigration.
Von Braun was an american you silly git.
Born in Germany, worked for the Nazis. Escaped to Austria in 1945 and surrendered to an American soldier, age 30.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Does it impress your friends that you are a chronic liar? You realize other people can look at the registers and see you're lying, right? Loser.
Don't forget his Nazi buddies, I mean, other good people that he brought. Good people, good people on both sides.
Correct. And Hitler was born in Austria. Moved to Germany at 23.
To train low skilled low wage people to listen voices on their head? Just asking....
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
To lose the Shit Wrapped in Chiffon name they earned for themselves. Now I understand why drivers do tag and run.
but last winter UPS outfitted about 2,500 of them with scanning devices and $8 Bluetooth headphones that issue one-word directions, such as "Green," "Red," or "Blue." The colors correspond to specific conveyor belts, which then transport the packages to other parts of the building for further processing.
I had this, sans Bluetooth, over 10 years ago working in Office Depot's Returns Consolidation Center in Kent, WA. Items would come off the pallet, I'd scan them, the wrist computer would indicate Yellow, Red, Green, or Blue, and down that line they'd go.
I didn't RTFA, but I do hope UPS is doing something more advanced, but TFS makes it sound like child's play.
Hitler was Austrian. What is your point exactly?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Correct.
that seems to be a concession that you were in fact not right, von Braun was not American and the GGP was not a "silly git".
And Hitler was born in Austria. Moved to Germany at 23.
I don't get your point. It's very widely known that Hitler was Austrian.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What's funny in this thread is watching the "point" (such as it was) get batted around and morphed until it just leaves the area completely and we're left with snarky-sounding rhetoric about nothing.
How about training their help to stop being gorillas. It's crazy, a lot of handlers don't seem to care. I've even had a package with tire tracks across it. If it's the least bit fragile, I never send it UPS.
that seems to be a concession that you were in fact not right, von Braun was not American and the GGP was not a "silly git".
Incorrect. von Braun was definitely American.
I don't get your point. It's very widely known that Hitler was Austrian.
Hitler was German.
Worked for UPS in the early 70s on the late shift as a package sorter while attending a Bell & Howell electronics school in Union, NJ. We had various drop chutes in front of us and moving color-coded bins behind us to drop the packages into. Every once and a while, a package from a pharmaceutical company would "accidentally" get smashed open where much hilarity ensued afterwards. Packages with 8-track tapes were also fair game.
Theft got so bad that a fleet of Lincoln Town Cars descended on the Secaucus NJ facility one night and we got the treatment from some pretty scary mafia types. Nobody will ever convince me that UPS isn't a legit operation run by the mob. I don't care much either since UPS does a great job most of the time. Just don't try and pilfer from them.
Von Braun was German and Hitler was Austrian.
There was no doubt about the latter even in the Nazi Germany.
The difference was that back then many Germans and many Austrians considered Austria a part of Germany that was disallowed to be a part of Germany by the treaties of Versailles and St. Germaine. Nowadays, not so much.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Von Braun was German and Hitler was Austrian.
There was no doubt about the latter even in the Nazi Germany.
That's cute. Tell me, then, what nationality was Napoleano di Buonaparte?