In late October UPS first announced its plans to roll out real-time tracking for all medical packages, including equipment and drugs, using a combination of high-powered sensors and data analytics. Named UPS Premier, the program is aimed at ensuring safe, timely, and accurate data for delivery of packages that could be crucial to personal health.
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the shipping company will use Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular-enabled sensors that can be read electronically at sorting and distribution facilities, allowing workers to prioritize and reroute shipments. The practice will aim to eliminate delays from external factors like weather and provide up-to-date tracking in nearly real-time.
UPS also plans to use the sensors to record data that will be analyzed using machine learning to improve package flow and logistics within the supply chain.
"Having better visibility about where shipments are [means] when unexpected things happen, we’ll be in a better position to react,” Juan Perez, UPS’ chief information and engineering officer, toldWSJ.
The UPS Healthcare and Life Sciences Unit
The release is the second in a series of shifts by UPS to prioritize packaging based on needs of consumers rather than mere timing, as the UPS became the first delivery service provider to gain access to drone delivery, beating out major competitors like Amazon.
In order to best serve healthcare customers, UPS will also be creating a new unit of 114 healthcare facilities with 5,000 personnel worldwide dedicated to the UPS Healthcare and Life Sciences Unit. The sites will be equipped with strict temperature environments for sensitive medical packages, from CRT to cryogenic and parcels that require around-the-clock monitoring.
UPS Healthcare and Life Sciences will be providing supply chain and logistics solutions and consultations to pharmaceutical, biopharma, and medical device companies.
Consumers can expect to see UPS Premier come online in the first quarter of 2020.
The Future of AI and Smart Tech in Shipping
AI and big data are completely revolutionizing the shipping industry. Not only are they allowing for better transparency to consumers, but the technology is also helping shippers predict weather patterns and prepare alternative routes so packages can still arrive at their destinations on time and undamaged.
UPS is spearheading these techniques; in addition to all of their medical advances, the company is also using AI to re-design the algorithm that guides its delivery drivers, eliminating as many left turns as possible to help them deliver a few additional packages per day, which adds up on a large scale.
AI in shipping has become a technology advancement that gives back as much as is put in: as companies continue to make use of the technology to save time, money, and fuel, they’ll have more funds to put back into continued research.
