Ups Case Study

Founded in 1907 as a messenger company in the United States, Atlanta-based United Parcel Service (UPS) has grown into a $49.7 billion corporation (in 2008) by focusing on the goal of enabling commerce around the globe. Today UPS is a global company with one of the most recognized and admired brands in the world and has become the world's largest package delivery company and a leading global provider of specialized transportation and logistics services. Every day, UPS manage the flow of goods, funds, and information in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. To ensure the ongoing success of the enterprise, UPS has invested heavily in information management systems and enabling information technologies to support its core business processes.

For example, UPS recently invested over $100 million in an ambitious project that installed advanced wireless LANs, next-generation scanners, and short-range wireless Bluetooth throughout its 2,000 worldwide distribution centers. The project allows package sorters to move freely with cordless optical scanners to capture data from packages. Then, this data is sent to the package-tracking system via Bluetooth and retransmitted to the wireless LAN. The data generated within each distribution center is then integrated with the rest of UPS’ packager tracking data worldwide. To further automate this process, the organization has enabled each of its individual delivery personnel to capture package-level information at each pick-up and delivery. Here the organization has employed geographical position systems and cellular “WiFi” technologies to integrate trucking, airplane, and ship-based data with that coming from its many distribution centers.

Two advanced wireless technologies are currently used in these projects: Bluetooth and the IEEE 802.11g wireless standard. The 802.11g standard (also known as “WiFi” for wireless fidelity”) defines the rules used by a local area network to transmit data over the air. In a...