UPS has unveiled a Packaging Innovation Center targeted at e-retailers and announced plans to test on-board fuel cells to power zero-emission trucks.
UPS and cooperation partner Sealed Air Corporation yesterday announced the opening of a Packaging Innovation Center in Louisville, Kentucky on the UPS Supply Chain Solutions campus, near the Worldport® facility, which is the UPS Air Group’s global headquarters. This was the next step in a strategic partnership announced in November 2016.
The Packaging Innovation Center will help solve the packaging and shipping challenges of e-commerce retailers, and companies in many other industries, by maximizing efficiency, minimizing waste, reducing shipping costs and increasing brand affinity, according to the two companies. It is designed to help businesses prepare for the future of supply chains, fulfillment, and packaging to enable global e-commerce success.
“One of the biggest challenges UPS customers have with e-commerce, and across other industry segments, is that they struggle to create efficiencies and enhance profit margins while still improving consumers’ perception of their brand,” said Alan Gershenhorn, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, UPS. “UPS customers don’t just need supply chain innovation. They also need packaging innovation. Our partnership with Sealed Air, and the new Packaging Innovation Center, will allow UPS to bring a more complete set of solutions as we help customers re-imagine their entire supply chains, including packaging.”
“The at-home delivery experience is more important than it has ever been. Consumer expectations for fast, free, on-time delivery leave businesses and retailers with very little room for error,” said Jerome Peribere, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sealed Air. “The partnership between Sealed Air and UPS allows us to combine our decades of expertise and innovation to help our customers create those exceptional delivery experiences from the point of manufacturing all the way through to the last moment of truth in front of the consumer.”
UPS and Sealed Air said that some of the opportunities for new efficiencies include:
* A need for packaging innovation due to inefficient use of labor resources
* Excessive waste of packaging materials
* Keeping costs down and customer satisfaction up despite increasing complexity
* A need for three times the logistics space compared with brick-and-mortar operations
* Vast proliferation in the number of ways that fulfillment gets done
* Increased pressure on existing labor resources to produce more, at higher speeds and lower costs, in more complex operational environments
* Eliminating the risk of damage and spoilage
* Deploying automation solutions that can not only scale up, but can also scale back down when needed
The partnership between UPS and Sealed Air is designed to help customers in each of these areas, and more. Occupying 6,000 square feet in the UPS Supply Chain Solutions facility, the Packaging Innovation Center houses a wide array of Sealed Air’s cutting-edge packaging solutions.
The selection of packaging technology on display includes an automated system that eliminates the need for outer cartons, which can reduce dimensional weight by as much as 87%; an automated right-sizing system that eliminates empty void space in each box by as much as 60%; and a portfolio of packaging work-cell solutions that improve labor productivity, reduce product damage, and create a consistent, enhanced experience for the end consumer.
UPS and Sealed Air will also use the Packaging Innovation Center to provide consulting services, including package performance analysis to ensure that companies are using the minimum amount of packaging needed to achieve maximum product protection. Customers can schedule meetings at the center to see the solutions in action and request a packaging analysis based on their specific e-commerce business needs and goals.
As part of the partnership with UPS, Sealed Air is participating in the UPS Customer Technology Program (CTP), providing packaging systems and materials. CTP is a customer loyalty program that connects businesses with best-in-class vendors of hardware, software, peripherals – and now packaging – to help them gain efficiencies across their business and enable growth.
In addition to this partnership, UPS also provides solutions to customers using its Package Design and Test Lab, helping protect packages before they ship. With high tech equipment that creates varying levels of temperature, air pressure, shock, compression and vibration, the lab can simulate moving a package throughout an entire supply chain. These real world experiences provide valuable data that helps UPS custom-design solutions for specific packaging needs. Testing is a compliment to the innovative packaging options that are offered through the Sealed Air / UPS partnership.
Separately, UPS announced yesterday that it will deploy a prototype extended range Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) in its Rolling Laboratory fleet of alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles. UPS is working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and other partners to design a first-of-its-kind, zero tailpipe emissions, Class 6 medium-duty delivery truck that meets the same route and range requirements of UPS’s existing conventional fuel vehicles.
Unlike fuel cell auxiliary power units, this vehicle will use the onboard fuel cell to generate electricity to propel the vehicle. This project is an important step toward demonstrating the commercial viability of zero tailpipe emissions trucks to fleet operators and the developing FCEV supply chain.
The first FCEV prototype will be deployed in Sacramento, Calif., where UPS will validate its design and core performance requirements by testing it on the street starting the third quarter of 2017. Current project plans call for additional UPS trucks to be validated with at least 5,000 hours of in-service operational performance. All of the trucks will be deployed in California due to that state’s ongoing investment in zero tailpipe emissions transportation and installment of hydrogen fueling stations around the state.
“The challenge we face with fuel cell technology is to ensure the design can meet the unique operational demands of our delivery vehicles on a commercial scale,” said Mark Wallace, UPS senior vice president global engineering and sustainability. “This project is an essential step to test the zero tailpipe emissions technology and vehicle on the road for UPS and the transportation industry. We have a long history of developing and promoting the use of more sustainable alternative fuels with our Rolling Laboratory, and hope that by bringing our unique expertise to the development of hydrogen fuels, we can help advance the technology.”
Each FCEV produces electricity which continuously charges the batteries, thereby providing additional power and an extended range of 125 miles. The UPS trucks are equipped with a 32kW fuel cell coupled to 45kWh of battery storage and 10kg of hydrogen fuel. The drive train runs on electricity supplied by batteries. Unlike other fuel cell applications, this will support the full duty cycle of the truck, including highway driving.
The project is part of a fuel cell project grant awarded by DOE in 2013 focused on verifying the proof of concept in commercial delivery vehicles. UPS is committed to evaluating these technologies that support the nation’s energy security, fuel diversity, and economic growth priorities. The project calls for retrofitting conventional fuel trucks with fuel cell electric systems designed specifically for use in a delivery truck duty cycle. UPS is partnering with the Center for Transportation and the Environment as well as Unique Electric Solutions LLC and the University of Texas’ Center for Electromechanics.
