The truck on the road is like the tip of the iceberg. To keep the trucks filled and running every day calls for a huge, nationwide organization. The latest in management methods, computer technology, communication equipment, and automotive maintenance keep the company going and the trucks moving.
Take Consolidated Freightways for example there when a customer telephones an order for a shipment to be picked up, he or she sets in motion a highly efficient system. A trained employee takes down the details, and the minute the customer hangs up, the order is telephoned by radio to the nearest radio-controlled truck so that the driver can swing by the plant and make the pickup. As soon as the freight is loaded on the truck, the driver gives the customer a "pro" or identifying number. Later, if he or she should have any questions about the shipment, the information can be retrieved instantly from the computer by using this number.
While the truck is on its way to make the pickup, the pricing is being done by the computer. All the necessary paperwork, such as writing up a bill of lading and preparing the manifest, are also being done electronically.
The location of the truck with the recent pickup and the location of every other truck the company is operating appear on a huge map of the United States in a control center. This system enables employees to monitor every vehicle continuously and pinpoint just where any shipment is in a matter of seconds. Thanks to long-line telephone communications, all company operations are coordinated throughout the country.
As for customer relations, hundreds of representatives contact shippers and are available to help answer questions, solve problems, or assist in planning and shipping programs.
Imagine the fascination of working as a member of such a team in some clerical capacity, as an accountant, or a computer, communications, or management specialist.
When surveying the trucking industry, let's not forget those hundreds of truck terminals, airfreight depots, and special sales offices, each staffed with personnel who handle all the clerical functions. Let's also remember the dock personnel who load and unload the trucks and sort the freight, as well as the mechanics and others who service and repair the vehicles. Here is an essential business that uses workers with many skills to keep freight moving twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Although the large trucking companies move much of the nation's heavy freight, there is another nationwide company that specializes in transporting only small packages, none weighing more than 150 pounds. It is probably the best known trucker in the United States.
THE FLEET OF BROWN TRUCKS
Sitting behind a desk that had once been a lunch counter, the young man was busy answering the two old-fashioned telephones that was ringing from time to time. His new undertaking, the American Messenger Company, consisted of the phones, two bicycles, six messengers, and himself, James Casey. It was 1907 and his basement office was located in downtown Seattle.
The messengers had to be courteous and neat to impress Mr. Casey and qualify for a job. They delivered papers and articles for local businesses and individuals in the Seattle area. Occasionally they were called upon to walk dogs or to carry an elderly woman's groceries.
Business was not brisk, but gradually the tiny enterprise grew. Casey changed the name to Merchants Parcel Delivery in 1913. At the same time he bought his first horseless carriage, a Model-T Ford. A year later seven motorcycles were added, and soon Merchants was handling all the deliveries for three of the largest department stores in the Seattle area.
In 1919 the company opened an office in Oakland and changed its named to United Parcel Service, at the same time adopting the official UPS color, brown. Other "firsts" followed, such as the first brown uniforms for drivers, the first substation in Long Beach, and the first conveyor belt, which was 180 feet long. It made handling packages more efficient.
The employee magazine, the Big Idea, appeared in Los Angeles in 1924. In its first issue Jim Casey wrote: "Here's to the success of the Big Idea, as a means of fostering a spirit of friendship, cooperation, and goodwill among all of us who are brought together by UPS. The business has grown to the size where it is no longer possible for all of us to know each other as intimately as would naturally be the case. But, it is intended that this shall always be a human organization. I want all to know some of the purposes, policies, and ideas of this company to the end that the greater possible good may come to customers and employees alike." Today each UPS district has its own local Big Idea, which includes twelve to sixteen pages of company-wide news.
It seemed that nothing could stop the growth of this dynamic company. UPS service was extended to every major West Coast city. Then the first brown trucks started rolling on New York City streets on July 14, 1930, and by year-end the fleet was delivering all parcels for 123 stores. Soon people in Midwestern states were seeing the brown trucks, and today every state except Alaska is served by the company.
In 1953 the management decided to offer UPS service not only to businesses but to anyone who wanted to ship a parcel. By 1996 UPS employed some 335,000 men and women, operated thousands of delivery and feeder vehicles, maintained a fleet of its own airplanes, and had hundreds of buildings spread across the nation. These buildings house highly specialized sorting devices.
The secret of UPS's success is consolidating packages at every point from pickup to delivery. This system enables the company to deliver the maximum number of packages in the minimum amount of time and number of miles. The small package shipments are fed into one highly specialized system. That system starts in the package car as the driver delivers packages and at the same time picks up those articles ready for shipment.
All these packages are then consolidated at the nearest center with those picked up by other drivers. Tractor-trailer units feed the packages from surrounding centers into a hub facility each night. Here they are all sorted and loaded into outgoing feeder vehicles that will take them to the UPS facility closest to their destination. Thanks to a highly mechanized sorting system, a hub like that at Montgomery, Alabama, can handle about 34,000 packages each night in less than four hours.
An equal amount of attention is given to the loading of each delivery truck. By the time each driver arrives for work he or she finds that other workers have loaded the truck in the proper sequence so that deliveries can be made as quickly as possible over the most direct route.
No matter how remote the address of either, the shipper or the receiver, UPS pickup and delivery service is available, and each package is delivered directly to the door of the consignee. In addition, the company maintains customer counters at each of the operating locations. Here individuals and business shippers can bring their packages rather than have them picked up.
As you may well imagine, this nationwide service depends on people: the men and women who answer the telephones and take your orders for pickups the drivers who deliver and pick up the packages the sorters at the various facilities, the drivers of the huge tractors and trailers that carry the packages long distances between centers and hubs, the maintenance people who keep the trucks clean and in top operating condition, the various clerical people in the offices and the supervisory and administrative staff-all help keep UPS going.
UPS is such an efficient company that it standardizes and codes all of its operations. If you have a flat tire, you have a 471, if you need road service, you call for a 388. Neatness is still high on the list of personnel "musts." Trucks, too, must be clean and to keep them that way, they are washed every night.
By 1996 the United Parcel Service had become the world's largest package distribution company, handling a million packages daily at over a thousand distribution sites including forty-nine international location's truly a global organizations! It also operated one of the world's largest fleets of airplanes from its airline headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1996 the airline division was working on long-range plans to convert its Boeing 727 cargo planes to passenger configurations each weekend to fly charter operations Saturdays and Sundays when the planes are normally idle.
A word of caution for those interested in working for UPS either as drivers or sorters and loaders in distribution centers. The company's injury rate in 1995 was slightly higher than the national average for transportation companies. If you do not believe you can safely handle heavy packages, think twice before applying for jobs that require this activity.
