History of FedEx
How “Absolutely, Positively Overnight!” Came To Be
Mark Twain once said, “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds”. This phrase could be applied to Fred Smith and Federal Express. From their beginnings in Little Rock, Arkansas in the early 70’s delivering 186 packages overnight to 25 U.S. cities, to three decades later parlaying it’s $20 billion dollar corporation into no less than five major operation companies. FedEx has become the world’s leader in global express transportation, providing fast delivery of documents, packages and freight shipments worldwide. As a result, the name “Fed Ex” is used in much the same manner as name “Band Aid” has today. Many use this term generically meaning all forms of overnight or rapid delivery systems. The powerful FedEx brand and the ever-familiar purple, orange and white colored letters are a welcome sight as deadlines near.
History of Moving Freight – The mail actually saved the future of passenger flight, but ironically outgrew it and needed its own logistical changes.
Fledging airmail service started in the U.S in 1918. The Post Office began regular delivery service between New York and Washington D.C., totaling a distance of 218
miles, using four U.S. Army Curtiss Jenny’s in which about 140 pounds of mail could be loaded into the front cockpits. Although before that, Aeromarine Airways flew passengers, airmail, and freight between Key West and Havana in November 1919 (Air Trans 95,105,319). The regular handling of larger packages did not occur until later on in the 1920’s. In those days, and for obvious reasons, air mail was considered pretty much a “suicide club” due to the lack of proper equipment, established airways and related equipment. Thus, the pioneers of early airmail routes must be credited for their efforts, as they established through their sacrifices, the foundation upon which commercial air transportation was built.
The honor of being the first air freight operator would probably have to go to Henry Ford, who at the time owned Ford Air Transport and was just as well known in aviation as in the automobile industry. The first original all-cargo air carriers were Slick Airways, United States Airlines, the Flying Tiger Line, and Air News. All were certified in 1949, but most were gone within a 5-year period (Air Trans 323).
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... air fleet and gives FE the right to place more than 10,000 of its drop boxes in post offices across the country. But this does little to address the Memphis-based carrier’s bigger problems: UPS, which has been winning market share from FE in e-commerce shipments (Internet).
The Future
What customers and companies are looking for already, is a way to ship packages without going through several steps, and be able to track “real-time” the shipping data. Fed Ex’s new data tracking network rolling out soon, should do the trick. The bottom line is that FedEx continues to deliver. They gave birth to the modern air/ground express industry with hard work and ingenuity, and they will continue to lead the way into the future.
Work Cited
About FedEX. http://www .fedex.com/us/about/express (4/29/01).
Holmes, Robert B. Air Mail. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc./Publishers, 1981.
Kane, Robert M. Air Transportation. Kendall/Hunt Publishing. Debuque, Iowa, 1999.
Sigafoos, Robert A. and Roger R. Easson. Absolutely Positively Overnight. St Lukes Press, Memphis, 1988.
Trimble, Vance, and Sam Walton. Overnight Success. Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, 1993.
John Deere & Company manufactures and distributes agriculture equipment as well as a broad range of construction and forestry equipment. The company is partnered with FedEx in order to maintain the logistics flow involved with the company’s transactions. FedEx is responsible for providing outsourced transportation services to 11 Deere facilities across the US and Canada. The 11 Deere facilities have different service agreements with FedEx in terms of cost and service depending on the type of business unit.
In Conclusion, What is next for the shipping giant of UPS? In just 25 years UPS airlines has grown to be the second largest Cargo Airline in the world. Time will only tell what is next for the global shipping giant. “What can Brown do for you?”
The Airplane was first invented in 1903; it amazed everyone but never really took off because of how dangerous it still was. They used planes in WWI but they threw them aside. After WWI (around mid 1920’s) the Federal Government had the idea of airmail. This was readily accepted; instead of receiving mail in two weeks it would only take a couple of days. Soon after this, transporting people quickly caught on although only the upper-class people could afford it, it soon became accessible to almost everyone. (Inventions: Airplane)
...ries, it was mainly used for luxury, goods, and relatives from the United States. Since our world has advanced in the past 100 years, we could accommodate more vacation areas, receive and ship a greater number of imports and exports, and see relatives from different countries. It has made our world an easier and more efficient place, one airplane at a time.
Besides that, in this competitive society, time is important to everyone. People are increasingly using the internet as a time-saving resource. People engage in numerous activities online, such as e-mail, planning trips, online banking and online research for their good purchases, all of which are easily completed online. FedEx can satisfy the consumer requirement of convenience with its sophisticated online service.
The first post office in the United States was established in seventeen seventy-five, which makes it the oldest most reliable post service in history. It is a well know fact that in the beginning, this business was called the Pony Express, which began in eighteen sixty. Years later the US Post office has become the largest company that we rely on to deliver our mail. This mailing institution delivers more mail to a larger area than any other delivery service in the world. They are rendering assistance to more than one million people in North America. There are over six hundred thousand employees and in excess of thirty four thousand facilities nationwide. This institution thrives to provide customer service, available products, transport of products, and accessibility to all consumers. The United States Postal Service is a reliable, excellent, and efficient delivery service. They supply a wide variety of convenient products to help with any shipping needs consumers may have.
The balloon tires were introduced along with the rail road’s established “piggy-back” service. The first mechanically refrigerated van was introduced. In 1925, there were 500,000 miles of hard surface roads in the U.S. In 1926, a fully loaded 2 ton truck was driven from New York to San Francisco in five days. Theodore Alfred Peterman was the founder of Peterbilt Motors Company in 1937.
Cost cutting; Technology plays a significant part in package delivery companies capability to assist customers in cutting their inventories which UPS owns. The UPS system processes packages using advanced information technology and are transported by the companies’ own aircraft, fleet or delivery vehicle so UPS does not rely on other companies.
In August of 1971, Smith started his venture by buying controlling interest in Arkansas Aviation Sales. While operating his new firm, Smith recognized the tremendous difficulty in getting packages delivered within one- to- two days. This dilemma motivated him to do the necessary research for resolving the current inefficient distribution system. Thus, the idea for Federal Express was born: a company that revolutionized global business practices and now defines speed and reliability1.
Business depends very critically upon Fed Ex. If Fed Ex had a major disruption to their delivery system, flowers would not be delivered on time, resulting in dissatisfied customers. For example, if Fed Ex employees went on strike, there would be no alternative equivalent to Fed Ex to deliver flowers to customers. UPS, although an alternative, did not deliver perishable products in the same timely fashion as Fed Ex.
This rating as well as many others factors have lead to the success of the United Parcel Service. The current status of the company reflects the strength of the their competitive position. The leaders of the current which include James Kelly, Michael L. Eskew, and John A. Duffy have set an example for anyone who is interested in management as a career. Their tactical maneuvers are first rate. This company succeeded because of the drastic communication advances. The customer is ultimately satisfied with the reliability of UPS to deliver on time. This is the marketing factor that sets UPS a step above the competition All decisions were made in the respect that the company would continue to bring the customer more than they expected. In turn United Parcel Service is an extremely profitable corporation. The environment provided by UPS keeps customers, employees, and managers working hard to keep up the high standards set by todays’ customers.
Private persons, big and small businesses at a point would have to either send or receive parcels, shipment, among other things. This cannot be done without the help of cargo companies, which are highly involved in the process of transportation of goods and services from one point to the other, but in short and long distances. And the demand to have this parcel and shipment delivered in a faster and more secured way , has brought about a high competition among several companies in the world , and they all have adopted both similar and also different measures to tackle the issues they deal with in the delivering order and tracking issues.
Human Resource Management (HRM) is fundamentally another name for personnel management. It is the process of making sure the employees are as creative as they can be. HRM is a way of grouping the range of activities associated with managing people that are variously categorised under employee relations, industrial/labour relations, personnel management and organisational behaviour. Many academic departments where research and teaching in all these areas take place have adopted the title department of human resources management. HRM is a coordinated approach to managing people that seeks to integrate the various personnel activates so that they are compatible with each other. Therefore the key areas of employee resourcing, employee development, employee reward and employee involvement are considered to be interrelated. Policy-making and procedures in one of these areas will have an impact on other areas, therefore human resources management is an approach that takes a holistic view and considers how various areas can be integrated.
FedEx has annual revenues of $20 billion and is the leading global provider of transportation, e-commerce and supply chain management services. FedEx accounts for a large market around the world. It is a fact that FedEx reported an average daily express package volume of 3,167,000 for the fiscal year ended May 2004, with U.S. volume of 2,771,000. Of those U.S. shipments, 1,846,000 (66.6%) were overnight shipments, and 667,000 (24.1%) were overnight letters. Total international daily package volume was 396,000, just 12.5% of all shipments, and FedEx does not break out overnight shipments (www.yahoo.com) (Appendix A)
The main purpose of Human Resource management is to develop both the individuals and the organization. This means Human Resource is not only responsible for finding and maturing talents of workers, but also putting programs in effect that will enhance communication between other workers.