OT- good UPS experience

I usually get good service too(almost always next day via UPS Ground from northern Indiana) but they have some weird systems/methods.

For example I ordered a tractor lift arm hook conversion kit from Northern Tools(in MN). UPS flew them from the warehouse in NC to Louisville, KY then trucked them all the way to Indianapolis, and then back to Clarksville IN(across the river from Louisville KY) then out to me for delivery. Found out when the package arrived, the hooks were made in Brandeburg KY, about 25 miles from me.

I have ordered stuff from Grainger in Louisville and it too went to Indy before back to Clarksville IN.

The woman

--That is the very definition of good customer service. It's incredible how many things go by premium overnight service just for the prestige factor--that has been the secret of FedEx's profit growth--when regular service would give just as good a result. You dealt with a real salesman, and they will enjoy your repeat business as a reward.

Louisville, KY then trucked

the river from Louisville KY) then out to me for delivery. Found out when

Welcome to the wacky world of logistics. In the old days, we looked at the system of connections that existed, and dumped stuff onto that web. Railway postal clerks typically had to know 2000 sets of routings from instant memory, so each batch of mail could be tossed off at its appropriate junction. Railway Express routed packages the same way, and when it worked it was a beautiful thing. The weak spots were the intensity of the information use (computers used to have gears, and postal clerks sometimes drank a little), and the amount of stuff you could load onto each leg of that web--plus the expense of keeping every leg of that web open, loaded or not. That was a throwaway expense when people used trains for transportation, but got real sad late in the game.

The "new" (1962) systems are called hub-and-spoke (HASP in the trade). The first weirdness you noticed was when local phone calls 100 miles away were free, but across the street was long distance. The Post Office set up sectional centers where every letter from every small town went to a nearby big town for fast sorting, then was dispatched back. That's what ZIP codes were for. Overall service got better, but you still got odd things like

These systems are never finished: they're "dynamic." Instead of whole crews of guys having to remember 2000 items and work 8 days straight, now you have a specialist who unendingly analyzes the traffic load on each part of that in/out network, and adjusts the system. When there's enough letters (tractor hooks, $100 executive memos, widgets) going from Louisville to Clarksville, you put in one direct routing just to serve that market. Then when the volume goes away, you have to kill that service real quick or you lose your butt. USPS still uses the hundred-year-old title for those analysts. They call them "expeditors."

You do realize that if you knew the blacksmith was only 25 miles away, you could have driven over and picked it up at a discount? In a perfect information system, all those middlemen would be out of a job. What if they sold cars that way! They used to.

I had to get something from my company in north San Jose to a test lab in south San Jose. Normally, I would have run it down there myself on a detour on my way home to west San Jose, I was busy elsewhere, so dropped it off at the SJ airport down the block.

The shipper got it to the lab the next AM, via Atlanta!

Karl