Category: Industry News

U.S. Army Gen. Gus Perna is not one to be awestruck by a well-executed logistics plan. But he’s enamored with FedEx Corp.’s and UPS’ performance during the first week of distribution for Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The military is a no-excuses, bottom-line world: Get the job done. And Perna has spent years helping manage the Defense Department’s massive logistics requirements, most recently as commander of Army Materiel Command. He also logged time at the Pentagon as Army deputy chief of staff for logistics, ran supply centers for the Defense Logistics Agency and directed logistics for U.S. forces in Iraq, among other stints.

You might say he’s seen it all.

Still, FedEx and UPS have impressed the chief operating officer for Operation Warp Speed, the industry-government partnership tasked with organizing a nationwide supply chain in record time to help quell the worst pandemic in 100 years. Rather than deploy military assets to deliver vaccines, OWS has harnessed the capabilities of commercial industry, supplemented with the Defense Department’s procurement and planning capabilities.

Uphill, both ways, in a snowstorm.

That’s not how Fedex and United Parcel Service are describing their week, but it is how both are navigating the East Coast’s first major winter storm of the year.

Both FedEx and UPS continued to operate at full capacity on Thursday as a nor’easter that moved over Pennsylvania, New York and other northeastern states on Wednesday dumped more than a foot of snow as well as sleet and freezing rain from North Carolina all the way up to Maine.

FedEx Corp. has lorded its speed advantage over United Parcel Service Inc. for years. Now FedEx is tapping the brakes in key parts of its network amid an onslaught of packages, while UPS touts its investment in faster deliveries.

The drive to be quicker has enabled UPS to cut delivery times by a day on 10% of its ground packages, said Juan Perez, the company’s chief information and engineering officer. Meanwhile, FedEx intentionally slowed some shipping lanes by a day beginning in November, temporarily ceding the speed crown as the coronavirus pandemic spurs record demand, according to ShipMatrix.

Both carriers are posting high on-time scores in part by limiting what they pick up, creating backlogs for Costco and other shippers

FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. have largely kept up with the record onslaught of packages since Thanksgiving, though that is in part because of efforts to lighten their loads.

Rather than risk having their systems clogged with packages, both FedEx and UPS are holding a harder line by enforcing a preset limit on the daily number of packages they will pick up. The policy is creating backlogs in some of the shippers’ warehouses, affecting retailers as large as Costco Wholesale Corp. down to small- and medium-size companies.

The first coronavirus vaccine doses in the United States are heading out of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Michigan. The initial shipments are expected to be delivered to more than 600 hospitals and clinics by Wednesday. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for Sunday TODAY.