Case Description

Founded in 1907 as a messenger company in the United States, Atlanta-based United Parcel Service (UPS) has grown into a $53 billion corporation (in 2011) 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 manages the flow of goods, funds, and information in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The culture at UPS is quite focused on operational efficiency and defect avoidance. For example, specialized truck routing software was designed to avoid left-hand turns, and truck drivers have a step-by-step process to enter, start, and drive off their trucks in under 10 seconds. 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 invested over $100 million in an ambitious project that installed advanced wireless LANs, next-generation scanners, and short-range wireless Bluetooth connectivity throughout its 2,000 worldwide distribution centers. UPS worked with Hewlett-Packard Co. for 18 months to develop the scanners. The project allows package sorters to move freely with cordless optical scanners to capture data from packages. Employees can take the HP printing device (SP400 All-in-One) to packages rather than having to bring packages to the device. UPS said it uses the device to put millions of sorting labels directly on packages. UPS expected the device to save millions of dollars in logistics costs (including reducing paper use by 1,338 tons per year). Implementing the SP400 also reduced processing time and instances of mislabeled packages. The SP400 replaces and simplifies the current method, which includes use of a large thermal printer, PC, monitor and scanner. As part of scanning and labeling, 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' package 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 wireless technologies are currently used in these projects: Bluetooth and the IEEE 802.11g wireless standard. The 802.11g standard defines the rules used by a local area network to transmit data over the air. In a typical WiFi network, users connect to wireless access points that are, in turn, connected to an Ethernet. Radio signals enable communication over an area of several hundred feet to 1,000 feet. In addition, roaming users can move from one access point to another like cell phone subscribers can move from cell to cell in a cellular phone network. Bluetooth is a wireless personal area network technology developed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, a consortium of companies led by Ericsson, IBM, Nokia and Toshiba. It was conceived for short-range transmission of digital data between mobile devices (PDAs and phones) and desktop devices. The UPS advanced network has three inter-connected design elements. In the first, network- "wearable" computing and communication devices play a key role. A cordless optical scanner mounted on a finger ring captures tracking numbers from the packages. Then, the wireless ring scanner transmits the data to a package-tracking system carried on the hip of the package sorter. Bluetooth is used for this finger-to-hip communication. The hip-mounted tracking system runs on a Windows operating system-based terminal, code-named Emerald, and could process 60 scans per minute. UPS has purchased more than 50,000 terminals as part of its distribution center project. In the second part of the network solution, the Emerald terminal retransmits the data received from the ring scanner to a wireless access point via WiFi. In the third and final part of the network solution, the wireless access point transmits the data across an Ethernet LAN in the distribution center to a server-based application that ships the data across UPS' WAN via a network server running in conjunction with either point-to-point fixed lines (a.k.a. leased lines) or over the more flexible cost structure of its telecomm partner's public switched digital network (PSDN). The data then flows via this WAN network to UPS' centralized package-tracking application running on servers in New Jersey. To address security concerns, UPS requires passwordprotected logins from all users and has implemented encryption technology on its networks. However, because most of the data transmitted over the wireless LAN consists of package-tracking numbers, transmission security is not as big an issue as it could be. One of the information systems linked into the UPS global WAN is a system called ORION (On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation). ORION consists of maps, algorithms and work rules and provides drivers with precise routes for their set of deliveries. ORION was first sketched out in 2000, but wasn't rolled out until 2008. ORION was rolled out across UPS incrementally - at times one driver at a time. This automated routing solution saved UPS about 35 million miles between 2008 and 2012. In addition, UPS operates a massive worldwide package processing hub (called Worldport) at the Louisville International Airport in Kentucky. Here UPS handle 84 packages per second (or 416,000 per hour). Thus the UPS organization shares data over a private, secure network, running on its own privatelyheld wireless/wired network topologies, as well as those networking services (both wireless and wired) owned and operated by its telecomm partners. In addition, UPS maintains a public Internet site through which the public may track the status of their individual UPS shipments. UPS also maintains an Intranet to coordinate internal employee activities and enterprise business processes and to share corporate information and services with its employees worldwide. Lastly, with its larger global accounts and business partners, UPS collaborates through Extranet-based Web services.

1. UPS employs a large array of IT hardware in its global business. For each of the IT hardware components in column one complete the table below only for the value discipline focus of operational excellence. [2 points IT HARWARE WHAT INFORMATION PROBLEM WHAT TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP COMPONENT AND OR REQUIREMENT) COULD THIS CONSIDERATIONS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH USE ADDRESS? USING THIS HARDWARE COMPONENT? Desktop computers used by UPS dispatch managers The HP printing device (SP400 All-in-One) used by package sorters Mainframe computer used to support enterprise-wide financial reporting Servers supporting its public-facing Internet site