For the longest title award, we turn to this week’s Fortune (Dec. 27,2010, pp.44-51) and find Bob Stoffel at UPS. Stoffel is the Senior VP for Supply Chain, Strategy, Engineering, and Sustainability.
With the word Strategy in his title, Stoffel points out that UPS is a lot more than a transportation company. It now has 1,000 engineers who are there just to help customers with their supply chains. Zappos built its whole e-commerce strategy around UPS’ Louisville Worldport. Zappos can take an order for shoes at 10pm and have them in the customer’s hands at 10am the next day.
When a Toshiba laptop comes in for repairs, it is UPS that actually fixes it and has it back to the customer in 24 hours. “It’s a triple win”, says Stoffel. “You’ve saved transportation links, you’ve reduced inventory,… and you’ve reduced your carbon footprint”.
Regarding sustainability, UPS has improved its fuel efficiency by 10% with a fleet of all-electric trucks, hybrids, and natural-gas vehicles. And thanks to telematics, GPS, and other technologies, UPS delivered 
350,000 more packages a day over last year, but drove 53,000 miles less a day. Finally, the firm’s famous “no-left-turn” policy is part of another 20 million miles a year saved through technology by avoiding costly delays from left turns and poor routings. “It drives my wife nuts”, Stossel says. “I won’t turn left (when looking for a gas station).We’ve got to find one on the right”.
My favorite improvement is the new “Eco Responsible Packaging” program to advise shippers how to waste less space in packaging. Just think of all the small items you have received in a big box. “Our vehicles run out of space before they run out of weight capacity”, says Stossel.
Discussion questions:
1. What is UPS’ sustainability strategy?
2. How is UPS part of other firms’ supply chain?
I like the quote from the article that reads “Our vehicles run out of space before reaching weight capacity.” During the holiday season, I think we should all keep this in mind. I don’t mean for shipping packages, I mean for personal food consumption.
Excellent choice of examples to use in class