I hate to admit that I recently watched a television show where a CEO goes “undercover” to understand a variety of job functions at the company. I’ll make no judgment about the quality of content, but one job assignment poorly performed in this episode flagged an interesting contrast to a similar and critical activity at UPS.

The task was loading a trailer with packages at a distribution facility. At UPS we build a “package wall” that is level, tight, uses all available space and reaches the ceiling. Load quality has everything to do with proper safety in our operations and care for package condition through transit.

It is engineering perfected millions of times each day. And when methods aren’t followed, customer satisfaction may be impacted. Before a package reaches the familiar brown delivery truck – whether or not the travel path includes an express move in the air – it gets loaded into trailers to move to the next sorting destination.  

There’s logic in the construction. You’re building a pyramid and not a column, stacking to take advantage of the vertical strength of the sides of the carton. Eliminating space between packages creates an environment where the walls have no room to shift or fall. Think about brick laying where you offset the joints. A good load will contain natural “T’s” or bridges that aid in weight distribution, which helps ensure packages don’t get crushed by heavier packages.

Packages are loaded from the nose to the rear of the trailer in a series of walls of relatively uniform depth. What starts the process is a ‘cornerstone” package. It is typically a strong, stable package 18 to 24 inches in depth and 12 to 24 inches in height. 

In a flat floor trailer, tiers and shelves are built about every 18 inches working left to right on the shelf and then building up right to left in an offset pattern. Each shelf forms the foundation for the next higher shelf until the top of the trailer is reached.  

Irregular packages by size, shape or packaging are typically loaded at the ends of the trailer or floor. Bags of small, lightweight packages are placed on top or to fill in. There are slight variations for drop-frame trailers or those with fixed shelves and air containers loaded on planes.

At UPS, there’s a 30-day training period for proficiency. It’s a combination of one-on-one demonstration of safe work methods and style together with practice and correction. The scan-one-load-one rule ensures visibility of each package associated with that trailer and information fed to operations and tracking systems. Extension conveyors move in and out and toggle up and down within the trailer to aid a loader to constantly work within the “power zone” of handling between armpits and thighs. Some 470 pieces can typically be loaded per hour with 100 percent scanning.

We’re always going to be classified in transportation, logistics and package delivery categories. But I’m thinking we’re one of the world’s largest construction companies, too.