Shipping giant modernizes and expands its global logistics operation while identifying opportunities to drive efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint.On the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, UPS has an industry-leading Smart Hub capable of handling 104,000 packages per hour. It’s a game-changing facility, loaded with the kind of technology and capabilities transforming the entire shipping industry. What is driving the need for this massive build-out? The rapid and ongoing rise of digital demand.
The IIoT platform is the digital backbone of an industrial operation. By connecting software and hardware and linking equipment through the power of sensors and secure connectivity, it unlocks trapped value in your business. “To be considered cutting-edge or innovative in this industry requires an open mind,” Stenson said. “You have to be willing to consider solutions that seem completely odd to you. You have to be willing to reconsider solutions that didn’t work six months ago, because technology is changing just that rapidly these days.
“When we first evaluated some of the Schneider products, they didn’t necessarily fit the spec and the vision that we had in mind,” Stenson said. “But that wasn’t the end of the conversation. Schneider took our feedback and made modifications to those designs. Now, as a result of those discussions, those products better suit our needs within the smart facility.
“Our application of EcoStruxure was really organic,” Stenson said. “It was a matter of understanding how we could best utilize the capabilities of plant floor devices, and how we could make that information more readily available to our support personnel and maintenance mechanics. EcoStruxure’s open architecture makes it so much easier for us to realize real-time communication from plant floor devices all the way up to the control system and the SCADA that runs the facility.