Fundamentals of Human Resource Management 6th Edition by Raymond Noe, John Hollenbeck, Barry Gerhart,Patrick Wright

Exercise 2

Big Data for High Efficiency at UPS
United Parcel Service is the world's largest package-shipping company, so saving a tiny bit of gasoline on every truck route can generate enormous savings, both in expenses and in impact on the environment. For example, reducing each route by one mile per day for a year can save the company $50 million. Thus, efficiency is a major factor in work design. UPS keeps improving its ability to gather, analyze, and apply data to making every aspect of package handling use fewer resources. Some of its requirements are as detailed as requiring drivers to hook their truck keys over one finger instead of stashing them in a pocket.
Recently, the company announced that it would begin using a system called Orion (for On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation) for its 55,000 drivers in the United States. The Orion system gathers data from customers, vehicles, and drivers' handheld computers. It analyzes the data-even times for pickup and delivery when customers have special requests-and designs routes for each driver to use the minimum time and fuel, driving the minimum distance.
According to UPS, Orion is expected to save the company more than 1.5 million gallons of fuel and eliminate 14,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in its first year. The company hopes that Orion will eventually do even more to improve outcomes-for example, updating routes when accidents or construction sites cause traffic congestion.
With results like these, it is easy to see why UPS invested years to develop the Orion system. The challenge for managers is to find drivers who are willing to commit to a system in which their every turn is planned by a computer and to keep those jobs engaging.
What benefits does UPS derive from using Orion to help it make drivers' work more efficient