The Great Package Race, 2006

Sponsored by The Supply Chain & Logistics Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology

The challenge

We sent packages to:

Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso in west Africa (formerly Upper Volta)
Split, home of the Palace of Diocletian and the largest city in the Dalmatian region of Croatia
Surabaya, capital of East Java, Indonesia
Punta Arenas, capital of the Patagonian region of Chile and one of the southernmost cities in the world

The contestants

The start: Friday 14 April

We began by going to the web sites of each carrier to get the essential forms, such as for the commercial invoice required for international shipments. These were easy to find at at the UPS and DHL web sites, harder to find at Fedex. If we had been registered users of any of the services, we could have filled out all the required paperwork on the web; but we are not and so we looked for forms that we could print at our office. The forms were available only in pdf format. They seemed designed for printing and then filling in by hand; to edit them electronically requires Adobe Acrobat, which is proprietary software.

Fedex pickup: 1425h

DHL pickup: 1520h

UPS pickup: 1600h

1050-1105h: We phoned UPS first. They were easy to contact and generally helpful. It took 15 minutes to get price quotes, confirmation that we had filled out the proper forms, and confirmation that the packages would be picked up today.
1115-1120h: We called DHL next. They were easy to contact and very quick with the information. We were on the phone for only 5 minutes.
1122-1145h: The web page seemed to require registration in order to do business with FedEx. After some frustrated searching, we finally found a phone number for international shipping on the FedEx web site (tiny, tiny print). The lady who answered tried to be helpful but she also seemed slightly confused. She told us that Burkina Faso prohibited receipt of the merchandise we wanted to send (Georgia Tech t-shirt, hat, and coffee cup). When we expressed disbelief and asked which of the items were prohibited, she put us on deep hold to investigate. Eventually she returned to ask whether the clothes were new or used: Used clothes were prohibited, so we were okay. We were on the phone for 23 minutes
1220h: DHL arrived first. The driver was sweaty and rushing to another stop, so he left the waybills for us to fill out and promised to return soon. (Sweaty and rushing made a good impression.)
1425h: FedEx picked up its packages.
1520h: DHL returned, picked up its packages.
1600h: UPS picked up its packages during its regularly scheduled afternoon stop.

The race

All carriers quoted guaranteed delivery times before 24 April 2006 and all packages but one were delivered before this time; the last package was delivered at the end of the day 28 April.

**Results**
Destination	Carrier	Cost	Delivery	Route	Comments
Ouagadougou	FedEx	$202.82	19 April 1709h	Atlanta; Memphis; Newark, NJ; Paris; Ouagadougou (details)	WINNER!
	UPS	$202.47	20 April 0919h	Atlanta; Hapeville, GA; Louisville, KY; Philadelphia; Paris; Abidjan; Ouagadougou (details)	This package was delayed in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The tracking message read: "The scheduled flight was cancelled and caused this delay due to circumstances beyond UPS control". Strangely, this package was reported as having been scanned again at Abidjan on 21 April, a day after delivery! We are not sure what this means.
	DHL	$165.02	28 April 1651h	Atlanta; Wilmington, OH; New York; Cologne; Brussels; Lagos; Ouagadougou (details)	Our package sat in Ouagadougou for one week before delivery. DHL said the address was inadequate.

Punta Arenas	DHL	$124.93	18 April 1626h	Atlanta; Miami; Santiago; Punta Arenas (details)	WINNER!
	FedEx	$170.57	20 April 1141h, as reported to tracking, but recipient says it was actually delivered 19 April at 1730h	Atlanta; Memphis; Miami; Santiago; Punta Arenas (details)
	UPS	$167.67	20 April 1050h but recipient says 1115h	Atlanta; Hapeville, GA; Louisville, KY; Miami; Santiago; Punta Arenas (details)	Tracking message on 18 April: "A processing error has at destination caused this delay [in Santiago]; the package was missorted at the hub. It has been rerouted to the correct destination site." A message later that day says "The address is in a remote area and deliveries are not made daily." Our recipient noted that the package was carried from Santiago to Punta Arenas by LANCargo and delivered locally by ChileExpress

Split	UPS	$224.16	19 April 1000h	Atlanta; Hapeville, GA; Louisville, KY; Cologne; Zagreb (details)	WINNER!: ahead of DHL by only 3 minutes! (The recipient was not home to receive the package but we consider the race over when the package reaches its destination, even if the recipient is not there to receive it.) UPS returned the next day to deliver.
	DHL	$157.68	19 April 1003h	Atlanta; Wilmington, OH; New York; Cologne; Brussels; Bergamo; Zagreb; ... (details)	No one was home at this, the first delivery attempt.
	FedEx	$222.82	24 April 0905h	Atlanta; Memphis; Panama City, Panama; Alajuela, Costa Rica???; Memphis, Paris; Frankfurt; Split (details)	A keying error by courier: "CR" apparently sent our package to Costa Rica instead of CRoatia

Surabaya	UPS	$111.94	18 April 1205h	Atlanta; Hapeville, GA; Louisville, KY; Anchorage, AK; Incheon, Korea; Singapore; Jakarta; Surabaya (details)	WINNER!
	DHL	$76.15	19 April 0955h	Atlanta; Wilmington, OH; Singapore; Jakarta; Surabaya (details)
	FedEx	$116.01	20 April 0913h	Atlanta; Indianapolis; Chicago; Anchorage; Subic Bay, Philippines; Cengkareng, Jakarta; Surabaya (details)

The routes

Figure 1: UPS routes to our destinations

After local pickup, each package was driven to a local freight terminal, sorted, and then flown to one of the major sortation facilities the carriers operate in the midwestern US: UPS uses Louisville, KY; FedEx uses Indianapolis, IN or Memphis, TN; DHL uses Wilmington, OH (northeast of Cincinnati).

What we learned

Our choice of destinations was not representative of most international shipping and may not reflect service to be expected to more typical destinations.
For destinations, like ours, that are outside the larger channels of international commerce, packages are eventually transferred to local carriers who are subcontractred to the multinationals. Then we lost some visibility into the delivery chain. For example, the delivery times reported by DHL and UPS at Punta Arenas were inconsistent with those reported by our recipient.
A surprising number of processing errors, especially keying errors, delayed packages: See, for example, UPS in Santiago; FedEx in Costa Rica; and the puzzling UPS post-delivery scan in Abidjan. We experienced similar problems in 2004.
DHL was significantly less expensive than the others, yet won one race and missed winning another by only 3 minutes. But they let our package sit for a week in Ouagadougou. They claimed the address was inadequate but never explained how. Eventually they delivered the package.

Next event

We welcome suggestions for subsequent competitions, where we will be sending a set of GT baseball caps, t-shirts, etc. somewhere in the world. Send us an address, preferably with accompanying telephone number and email address, and we will race the hats by vying package couriers to your parents, nephews, nieces, etc. All that we need is sufficient address and a promise to document the delivery.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Paul Goldsman, Sergio Maturana, and Sriram Subramanian for help in sending off the packages; and thanks to the recipients for documenting their arrival! Also thanks to Bob Foley for catching some errors in the original html coding for this web page and to Anton Kleywegt for correcting some of my lapses in the geography of Africa.

(My colleague George Nemhauser has visited two of these cities, Split and Punta Arenas. Has anyone else visited more than two?)