UPS Facility Adds More Security and Safety Procedures Post 9/11

When news of the flights being compromised by terrorists on , UPS worked quickly to ground their planes and protect their employees.

"There are so many different facets of how we handled the day," said UPS Public Relations Manager Susan Rosenberg. "What’s probably most important was how we were able to isolate the impacts to specific geographies and deal with the grounding of our airline in the U.S. and keep commerce moving in the U.S. and around the world. It’s a testament to UPS planning and contingency management. There are stories of heroism among UPSers and emergency supplies that were delivered for emergency response."

Rosenberg said UPS has honed its business continuity planning for themselves and how they guide they customers as we’ve expanded logistics capabilities globally. They can leverage the UPS global transportation network for maximum effectiveness. At the same time, they're decentralized in operations to implement contingencies for any disaster—natural or man-made.

This includes everything from how they re-route our aircraft around the world to preparation and communications with customers to align medicines and emergency parts through safety stocks in UPS Field Stocking Locations and healthcare logistics facilities.

It includes the attention to technology system redundancies so they can continue the data exchange for our operations as well as the visibility they provide customers globally about their shipments.

"In fact, experience post 9/11—and with disasters ranging from tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, famine, tornadoes, floods and volcanoes—UPS has built an expertise for humanitarian logistics and disaster preparedness," Rosenberg said. "UPS provides counsel to CARE, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and Red Cross as examples for building capacity and effectively managing the logistics of supplies and relief efforts ongoing."

"Our first concern is the safety of our people," she said. "We have enhanced communications for advance planning and to guide assessment and the flow of instruction if an incident occurs."

UPS has a multi-layered approach to security that includes collaboration with security agencies for information exchange, risk assessment, regulatory compliance and preventive action. This isn’t just in the U.S. but is with government authorities around the world.