Stories about: United Parcel Service

United Parcel Service (UPS) will make about US$1 billion in technology investments this year to improve the efficiency of its operations, with the goal of cutting billions more from its costs over the long term, company executives said Tuesday.

At first glance, UPS's warehouse workers might be mistaken for gun-toting cyborgs out of a dystopian movie. But a closer look at the stainless steel devices wrapped around employees' forearms reveal a hi-tech contraption that scans barcodes and shoots bright magenta ink--not laser beams.

As an undercover agent with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, Aaron Graham saw firsthand how counterfeit drugs can slip into the pharmaceutical supply chain. Graham, now VP and chief security officer for Purdue Pharma, once posed as the manager of an "institutional pharmacy" selling drugs at a discount to secondary wholesalers who were then supposed to sell them to nursing homes. Soon after he began, his phone started ringing. Dozens of smaller pharmaceutical wholesale companies were calling, desperate to buy his drugs. These secondary or "grey market" wholesalers scour the country and the world for low-price drugs they can sell back to major wholesalers for a profit. In addition to trawling for institutional pharmacies, some secondary wholesalers have been known to purchase counterfeit drugs from criminal organizations in places such as China, Thailand or Colombia.

In the hands of these pioneers, wireless technology is breaking new ground in every sector of the economy, with applications that range from the everyday to the extraordinary

David Drew used to have his own supergroup for IT decision making at 3M: the Information Systems Steering Committee. He had all six business division chiefs in there, along with the top functional leaders, meeting together six times a year to do nothing but jam on IT strategy, endorse IT projects of more than $US1 million and prioritise IT resources

In mid-May this year the local arm of US firm United Parcel Service (UPS) ordered up a solution to a difficult business problem from Australian software developer Eagle Datamation International (EDI) - a long-time provider for UPS. Head office required the UPS Australian operation to alter its billing and other critical internal customer service processes, and the branch needed the solution delivered and operable by July 15.

Mail Boxes Etc. spent US$25 million to position itself as the real world's shipping partner to the virtual e-tail space. One problem: The technology doesn't work.

No standards. Few vendors. Skeptical users. Early adopters of wireless technology had it tough.

While its definitely time to get moving on wireless, it makes sense to take it slow.

There's plenty of hype about chief privacy officers, but some say their main function is PR. Is that such a bad thing?