The NY Times has an article today about rail congestion: Freight-Car Congestion Is Worrying Union Pacific. In the article, they mantion that a lot of the problem is caused by UPS: “U.P.S. has begun a new coast-to-coast premium service that requires high-speed train shipment to Dallas, Atlanta and New York.”
Does anyone know what the heck this service is? I can’t find anything on the UPS web site. All the premium services have “air” in their name or are “worldwide”.
You have to dig a litttle deeply into the UPS website, but
I guess that “premium service” is another name for “guaranteed delivery date” which is not the norm for train deliveries in the US.
UPS does more than ship your eBay purchases and Christmas gifts now.
A quick poke around their websites, shows that they’ve gotten into overseas shipping by er, ah, ship, (A product they call Supply Chain Solutions) and “logistics” which is a fancy word for taking trucks or frieght containers full of whatever and ensuring they get to the right place at the right time, which is a key part of “just in time” stocking. Manufacturing has gone to JIT in a big way - instead of warehousing stuff, the stuff is consumed on a schedule and made on that schedule. Instead of being stacked up and sitting around, they go right fom the production line to trucks. The trucks go right to wherever the stuff is needed, and they’re unloaded onto the assembly line, rather than stacking up and consuming space. Essentially, the only time the “stuff” is being stored is the time it’s rolling down the road in a truck.
Or on a train, as the case may be.