inbound
go directly to jail … but first sign for this package
A brand can be leveraged six ways from Sunday. Witness UPS, which several years
ago commissioned a customized version of the classic Monopoly board game.
The game board resembles the familiar Monopoly board, but with UPS-specific
twists. For example, the spaces reserved for the four railroads in the traditional game
are replaced by the four modes of transportation. Well-known Monopoly properties
like Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens, and Atlantic Avenue are replaced by a UPS Store in
the Atlanta suburb of Decatur, Ga.; the UPS Worldport air hub in Louisville, Ky.; and
the carrier’s Atlanta headquarters. Players who land on spaces asking them to select
cards may be told to retreat three spaces for a late delivery, receive a $50 dividend for
a UPS stock split, or collect $20 for a refund of port charges.
UPS originally commissioned 2,000 copies of the game. However, the copies
were mothballed after executives decided that the all-male delivery drivers shown
on the board undermined the company’s diversity efforts. Finally, the games were
dusted off and sold internally for $10 each. The proceeds from the sales were
donated to the United Way. ;
pallet torture tests
Remember when bar codes were new and exotic? If you do,
you might not be as young as you think. The now-ubiquitous
black-and-white striped Universal Product Code celebrated
its 35th birthday on June 1.
A giant U.P.C.-decorated birthday cake was the centerpiece of a party held at last
month’s Annual U Connect Conference put on by GS1 US, the developer and
administrator of the U.P.C. in the United States.
The code, which today consists of 59 machine-readable bars and 12 digits that
identify the item and its manufacturer, was originally designed to speed up grocery
checkouts. The first live U.P.C. scan occurred on June 26, 1974, when a cashier at a
Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, scanned a pack of Wrigley’s gum. The productivity improvements since then have saved retailers, manufacturers, and consumers billions of dollars. Now adopted by more than 25 industries, U.P.C. codes are scanned
more than 10 billion times each day, according to GS1 US. ;
happy birthday to U. … P.C.!
You know how hard it is to deal with onions in your own kitchen. Just imagine
what it’s like to work in a 17,000-square-foot warehouse full of them. It’s all in a
day’s work for employees at Green Valley Onion’s New Hampton, N.Y., storage
facility, where onions of all types are cleaned, sized, and packaged for distribution
throughout the East Coast and the Midwest.
To cut heating and cooling costs, Green Valley Onion installed several ceiling
fans manufactured by Big Ass Fans a while back. In the first month alone, the facility’s electric bill dropped by $400, and the savings continue to mount.
But the fans have brought another unexpected benefit. Good air circulation is
essential to preventing sprouting and decay, which would make the onions unfit
for sale. Thanks to the fans, air circulation in the facility improved so much that
Green Valley’s produce remains fresher year-round. The result: less waste and
higher profits. ;
a breath of fresh air
A pallet is a pallet is a pallet …
isn’t it? As we found out during
a recent tour of CHEP’s
Innovation Center in Orlando,
Fla., it definitely is not. Even
pallets that look identical and
are built to the same specifications do not always perform
the same way.
At the center, CHEP, the
world’s largest pallet pooler,
runs pallets of all types
(including wood, plastic, and
steel) through rigorous tests.
We watched as technicians
compressed, torqued, and
dropped several of the familiar
blue-painted wood pallets in
machines that simulated storage, automated handling, and
transportation conditions. The
platforms cracked at similar
stress levels, but there were
some differences in their
breaking points due to nail
placement, the number of trips
the pallets had made and the
loads they had carried, storage
temperatures, and so forth.
Even geography can affect
pallet performance. In Chile,
said our friendly guide, CHEP
engineers found that just five
degrees of latitude caused
wood from the same tree
species to behave differently.
Furthermore, wood from the
base, the mid-section, and the
top of most tree species can
significantly differ in strength.
Speaking of trees, the economic slowdown has been good
for the pallet industry in one
way, our guide noted. The
decline in demand by home
builders has led to a drop in
price for yellow pine, making the
sturdy material affordable for
pallet construction once again.
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