{{ TRACY IS TALKING } SHIFT+CONTROL
YOUTHIS ARESIDE ENOUGH. UP BY NICOLE HEROUX WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY NSP STUDIO BY TRACYI SIMONE
Did you ever wonder why some of the packages that get delivered to your house are mangled beyond recognition? In these days of stores closing and people ordering most of their products online, the supply chain is busier than ever. The companies that deliver products to our homes and businesses have a higher volume than ever. I was able to see the inside of a major UPS hub and now I understand why some of the packages that get delivered do not make it unscathed through the process. What I think surprised me the most was the number of women who worked there, especially at night. Several of the supervisors and managers were women and, in fact, the CEO is female. Of course, most of the workers are men, but women certainly have a lot of opportunities there too. UPS moves over 25 million packages per day. In order to do that, there must be a very efficient process in place. There is a series of conveyor belts, chutes, rollers, trucks of various sizes, airplanes, and people…all working together to get your packages to you as quickly as possible. I am assuming that the same things happen at FedEx, DHL, the USPS…. anywhere that deals with a high volume of packages. It becomes about speed 150
ROCHESTER WOMAN ONLINE : APRIL EDITION 2022
and accuracy. With people in the mix and all the heavy machinery, it’s amazing that as many packages make it to their proper destinations without issue as they do! Challenge #1: Get all the packages onto the trucks by the time the shift is over, and the drivers show up. Challenge #2: Get the trucks out of the plant and on the road without needing to overflow to a second set
of trucks, which would increase the cost of the process. Packages are scanned and sorted at each point in the system so that they can arrive to you as soon as possible. The job is to keep things moving…… keep that belt moving and get these packages out of there! It is kind of like Lucy with the chocolates, but instead of candy, it might be air conditioners or dog food or something.
So, while Lucy and Ethel started hiding some of the chocolates on their belts by eating them, stashing them in their clothing and pretending that everything was alright when the supervisor came along…..the packages in the big operations like UPS cannot be hidden. They must be moved from point A to point B and in a hurry. The reality is that regardless of how your package may be labeled, ‘Handle with Care’, ‘This Side Up’, ‘Fragile’, or otherwise, the fact remains that it is going to be traveling the network of belts and chutes that will tumble them throughout the system. As they travel, they will be tossed about and mishandled by the machines. Some are shaped oddly, some leak, some of the packing tape will let loose, etc. If you ordered a nice outfit, let’s say, that is in a wellsealed box, but it is followed on the belt by a gas grill or flat screen tv, your box will get crushed and there is nothing that anyone could have done to prevent it. Conveyor belts cannot read and the packages travel one at a time, dozens at a time, etc. It all depends. So, all those signs trying to tell people
