UPS and the Orion system

An article recently written in the Wall Street Journal called “UPS’s 199-Digit ‘Orion’ Number is real” describes the number of alternatives that a UPS driver can make on their average 120 stop day. With all of these alternatives how is it possible that the driver can make the most efficient delivery route while factoring in the different delivery times, road regulations, and private road shortcuts? The human mind is unable to find the optimal route so the experts at UPS have been trying to solve the problem.

What UPS has come up with is a computer platform called “Orion” which is an algorithm that has taken over 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to become beneficial, but not yet perfect to this day. Orion saves UPS only a dollar or two here and there but with 55,000 routes in the US alone the impact is much larger then is sounds. 40% of all routes are using Orion to this day and with e-commerce growing faster than ever, UPS is looking to make Orion used in all vehicles. The company saves an average of seven to eight miles a route per day. Just by reducing one mile a day it can save the company $50 million a year. By 2018 an estimate of 50% of all deliveries will derive from e-commerce purchases. By this time Orion is expected to save the company $300 million to $400 million once the system is fully implemented.

Orion is very beneficial but is not accepted by all UPS drivers and some have logical reasons not to like this innovation. Some of the drivers see this system as an illogical strategy. Orion will create more efficient rural routes a majority of the time but others are forced to drive additional miles on their routes. Sometimes even skip houses in the neighborhood that they are already delivering in. Another driver brings up that Orion requests them to back up more than regular and make more left turns which is a safety hazard that UPS does not condone. UPS does recommend that when drivers are faced with scenarios like this they can refrain from violating safety rules. Drivers have the option to not use Orion if the system does not detect traffic events of if they have some type of valid reasoning.

 I believe that Orion is a great innovation to the delivery system and will only become more efficient. Delivery is becoming more and more common in the everyday household with the advancement and convenience of e-commerce. Some companies that I believe will begin to adapt strategies like those of UPS will be Apple and Google with their mapping applications. I need to do more research on their personal algorithms but I would hope that they have a similar design to Orions. With driver less cars advancing today as well it would be smart to include these technologies for easier and more efficient navigation. I am looking forward to seeing how UPS will adjust Orion to their everyday delivery operations.