DHL tests package tracking technology

Someday, packages could carry little radio frequency stickers that let you track them down anywhere in the world, even on a ship or plane halfway across the ocean.

"It's like a global positioning system for packages," said Jerry Hennessy, director of customer-service operations for DHL Express, the company that is testing the technology in the Phoenix area.

DHL, owned by a German company, is the world's largest express-shipping company and has its second-largest American presence in the Phoenix area.

That includes its main American technology and data center, housed in a bulletproof Scottsdale building, and its largest American customer service center, in Tempe.

The Scottsdale center, with 1,000 employees, is where the company brainstorms and develops new products for American customers, such as the radio-frequency identification technology stickers that operate like smart stamps.

"You can stick a tag on a box and transmit a signal back to the mother station that can locate specifically where the box is," Hennessy said.

The company is now running pilot tests with some customers to see how well the stickers work. The high-tech stickers also can be used to measure temperatures, to make sure food, pharmaceuticals and other products are kept properly cool.

Another technology the company has developed is a simplified import process. A company can go online and arrange for a van in another country to pick up products or parts and then create a label and arrange for payment.

DHL has about 1,700 employees in the Valley, the most American workers outside Wilmington, Ohio. DHL has about 10,000 employees at its U.S. air-freight hub there. Though it's the largest express-shipping company in the world, it is only the third-largest in the United States, behind FedEx and UPS. It has its own aircraft fleet.

Around the clock, DHL workers are hustling somewhere in the world. The main DHL headquarters are in Bonn, Germany, and it also has headquarters in Plantation, Fla., London and Singapore.

At the Tempe call center, employees help customers ship and track packages and get information about customs and other issues affecting international shipments. The Tempe site has about 650 employees.

The company not only handles packages but helps other companies import parts and ship finished products by land, air, sea and rail.

For three years it has helped ship live Christmas trees and ornaments to American soldiers in Iraq.

Among the most unusual things it ships are live animals, including crickets used for pet food; live lobsters for human food; and jaguars, tigers, birds and other animals for zoos.

"We've had people ship bowling balls, and sometimes they don't pack them the right way," Hennessy said. "So you see them kind of skidding and even rolling down the conveyor belts."
Source: azcentral.com