UPS 2010 Annual Report Download - page 18

• Package tracking, pickup requests, rate quotes, account opening, wireless registration, drop-off locator,
transit times and supply ordering services are all available at customers’ desktops or laptops. The site
also displays full domestic and international service information and allows customers to process
outbound shipments as well as return labels for their customers.
• Businesses in a number of countries also can download UPS Developer Kit™to their own websites for
direct use by their customers. This allows users to access the information they need without leaving our
customers’ websites.
Technology is also the foundation for process improvements within UPS that enhance productivity, improve
efficiency and reduce costs. In recent years, we completed the most comprehensive improvement to our U.S.
small package handling facilities. This multi-year effort re-engineered our domestic business, based on a data-
driven platform, and included software, hardware and process changes. It enables a package center to produce an
optimized dispatch plan for every driver and detailed loading instructions for every vehicle before center
employees handle any packages. This plan reduces mileage driven, resulting in substantial fuel savings. The
re-engineered system provides the basis for unique customer-focused services based on the customer-specific
data which powers the system.
A new technology we began deploying in 2008 is telematics, which combines information from our drivers’
hand-held computers with GPS and automotive sensors to help us better manage our ground fleet operations. It
helps us improve vehicle maintenance, enhance safety and fine-tune delivery and pick-up service. This
technology also improves on-road performance by reducing vehicle expense, fuel consumption, and carbon
emissions. Since 2008, we have equipped approximately 24,000 of our U.S. vehicles with the sensors needed to
achieve the benefits from this technology.
Sustainability
Our business strategy and corporate responsibility strategy are substantially the same: to increase the
economic vitality and environmental sustainability of the global economy by aggregating the shipping activity of
millions of businesses and individuals worldwide into a single highly efficient logistics network. The website
www.sustainability.ups.com provides complete information on this strategy. This approach:
• Benefits UPS by ensuring strong demand for our products and services;
• Benefits the economy by making global supply chains more efficient and less expensive by enabling
businesses the ability to focus more tightly on their core competencies and reduce the additional
operating costs associated with moving their goods; and
• Benefits the environment by reducing the carbon intensity of global shipping activities and enabling
UPS to leverage its own carbon efficiency improvements into the supply chains of all its customers.
We continually strive to improve our efficiencies and reduce the overall energy and emissions intensity of
our global distribution network.
At UPS, we recognize our management approach for avoiding energy use and emissions as “decarbonization
synergy”. This means we simultaneously pursue multiple strategies for carbon avoidance, in a way that makes
each one stronger and more effective than it would be on its own. A simple, yet powerful, example of
decarbonization synergy at UPS is our ability to handle all categories of service (express, ground, domestic,
international, commercial, residential) through one integrated pickup and delivery service system. We believe our
integrated network is a competitive advantage, therefore, we are able to use all assets more efficiently and
achieve far greater carbon avoidance.
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