InformationWeek

Prior to 1989, UPS was shipping 8 million to 9 million packages a day and routing and recording all information on each package on paper sheets. To help gather information, UPS developed and began using its Delivery Information Acquisition Device, and soon adopted bar-coded shipping labels. All the information from the device was downloaded to back-end systems at the end of each business day.

In 1992, UPS deployed a second generation of the device, which eliminated the end-of-day downloads thanks to a wireless transmission system within each delivery truck that used radio-frequency technology to send package information back to UPS's central network. The problem was that, at the time, no telecommunications carrier provided a nationwide cellular network, so UPS was forced to create its own nationwide wireless data service through a broad alliance with more than 100 carriers. When wireless data networks became more robust two years later, UPS switched from analog to packet-based wireless transmission and saw an almost instant cost savings of $100 million. Those savings covered the costs of the entire project. UPS is still the largest cellular subscriber to date.

The company went on to develop a third-generation device, which it installed in 1999. That system lets employees send and receive delivery information directly between the devices and the UPS central network, so UPS delivery drivers, for example, can make special pickups and drop-offs as necessary.

UPS realized the benefits of having wireless devices in the drivers' hands and expanded the use of wireless systems behind the scenes in its shipping and processing centers. In 1995, UPS began using its Internal Package Level Device in its routing and distribution centers, along with other proprietary, specific-use devices.

Over time, multiple operating platforms had been adopted by different divisions for each device, and each version of a device had its own operating system. A proprietary operating system for the first Delivery Information Acquisition Device in 1989 relied on a proprietary operating system, but the next iteration used a Vertex System. UPS then upgraded to DSave. The current Ruby project, along with the Emerald Internal Package Level Detail device, and the Sapphire fixed-mount system, will use Windows CE to reduce integration and system-management headaches and let UPS's current group of Windows NT platform developers more easily migrate to writing applications for wireless devices, says David Salzman, program manager of information services.

Salzman previously had to oversee 138 employees who managed and developed applications for each device. By consolidating to three devices and a single operating system, he can minimize the number of people needed to manage such systems and tap the larger core of Windows NT developers. The fact that UPS already has such a workforce also made choosing Windows CE an easy bet compared with adopting the Palm operating system or another system, he says.

"We learned our lesson," Salzman says. "With Windows CE, we can go anywhere for service or applications."