DHL has launched a new route optimization program aimed at helping its facilities map optimum delivery routes, streamline sorting and more efficiently balance daily loads. The carrier’s aim is to enhance its operations while better serving customer needs. It will be implemented over the next nine months at nearly 340 facilities throughout the country.
The company claims that the customized software solution will balance workload capacity across the entire fleet, decrease drive time, route length and fuel consumption which will mean more rapid processing of shipments and increased efficiency.
Too, DHL began a phased replacement of older, smaller delivery vehicles with step vans that have almost twice the capacity of the older vehicles and are more fuel-efficient. The program began in January and is expected to be completed by September.
The 11 metropolitan areas covered in the upgrade are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas/Fort Worth, the Los Angeles Basin, New York City, Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, San Antonio and Washington, D.C.
As examples of the changes in delivery time, UPS points out that shipments between New York City and Dallas, for example, are now guaranteed to arrive in three business days rather than four. Packages moving from Atlanta to New York City had previously taken three business days for delivery and now take only two.
Meanwhile, in China, FedEx Express has acquired the remaining 50% of the Tianjin Datian W. Group Co. Ltd. (DTW Group) joint venture it entered into in 1999. It now becomes a wholly owned FedEx company. The acquisition includes DTW assets that had been used for joint International Priority express service and domestic Chinese express assets in its 89 locations.
“Our customers will benefit from seamless access to key areas worldwide, including China’s second and third tier cities,” says David L. Cunningham, Jr., president, Asia Pacific, FedEx Express. “Cities outside the eastern seaboard, like Wuhan -- which has, itself, twice the population of Los Angeles – are a crucial part of growing China’s economy and vital to the long-term growth of FedEx in this region.”
