Just like the Braves, UPS is the home team and we wish them well but everyone plays by the same rules and we call ’em as we see ’em.It’s still a little buggy and it’s a little light on features compared to established package managers, like Chocolatey, but it’s great news for Windows devs and power users. A race to Singapore ended in a tie when delivery folk from UPS and FedEx arrived at the door simultaneously, even though the packages had traveled completely different routes.Įach race has a theme and we will vary the theme so that one time we will ship, for example, to exotic locales, another time to centers of business, and another time to our mothers. In 2006 UPS beat DHL to Croatia by 3 minutes. There have been dramatic finishes as well. One carrier claimed that the destination country did not exist. Another was sent to Costa Rica instead of Croatia. One package was carried back-and-forth across the Atlantic Ocean nine times before delivery.
It is remarkable that most packages eventually reach their destinations, even under difficult circumstances, but there have been some dramatic lapses. We choose locations to challenge the business processes of the multinational package carriers, then observe the results.
How do packages actually get from sender to consignee? Each carrier has its own freight network through which a package travels and the experience of each package depends on the structure of the network.įor fun, we race packages from The Supply Chain & Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA (USA) to sites around the world via different international parcel carriers (UPS, Fedex, DHL, USPS). John Bartholdi, Manhattan Associates/Dabbiere Chair and Professor and Co-Executive Director, Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation & Research Center, explains the 2013 Great Package Race.