ATLANTA, Oct. 21, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —Expands Drone Subsidiary UPS Flight Forward Nationally With Several New Healthcare and Hospital Network Customers; Announces Plan To Create Drone Delivery Solutions with AmerisourceBergen, CVS Health and Kaiser PermanenteFurther Solidifies E-commerce Leadership and Creates Additional Platform Partnership; Rolls out UPS Digital Access ProgramLaunches Next Generation Healthcare Logistics Solution and Forms Healthcare and Life Sciences UnitContinues Expansion of UPS Worldwide Economy Service to Three Additional Countries Providing Lower-Priced International Deferred Shipping OptionsUPS (NYSE:UPS) today announced numerous new technology-enabled services and partnerships designed to support customer needs aligned with the company’s strategic growth initiatives.“UPS is moving quickly to introduce a wide range of innovative new services designed to extend our leadership position in developing technology solutions to help e-commerce and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs),” said UPS Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, David Abney. “We see enormous opportunities and unmet customer needs in several high-growth market segments.”Drone Subsidiary UPS Flight Forward Announces New Customers and Future Residential Delivery TestsBuilding on UPS’s industry first hospital network focused drone delivery program, UPS Flight forward today announced a series of new customers and future drone delivery plans.“When we launched UPS Flight Forward, we said we would move quickly to scale this business – now the country’s first and only fully-certified drone airline – and that’s exactly what we are doing,” said UPS Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer Scott Price. “We started with a hospital campus environment and are now expanding scale and use-cases. UPS Flight Forward will work with new customers in other industries to design additional solutions for a wide array of last-mile and urgent delivery challenges.”The company today announced new drone delivery service in support of the University of Utah Health hospital campuses, in partnership with Matternet.  The University of Utah campus program will involve drone deliveries of samples and other cargo, similar to the program originally introduced at WakeMed Hospital in North Carolina.Also today, UPS Flight Forward announced an agreement with CVS Health to develop a variety of drone delivery use cases for business-to consumer applications. The program will include evaluation of delivery of prescriptions and retail products to the homes of CVS customers.UPS is also partnering with wholesale pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen, a leading global healthcare solutions provider. The collaboration will initially deploy the UPS Flight Forward drone airline to transport certain pharmaceuticals, supplies and records to qualifying medical campuses served by AmerisourceBergen across the United States, with plans to then expand its use to other sites of care.Additionally, UPS Flight Forward will soon develop drone delivery services in support of Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. The delivery applications will involve shipping healthcare shipments or other items on the company’s hospital campuses.UPS Digital Access Program Embeds UPS Shipping Services in Leading E-Commerce PlatformsUPS today revealed its strategy to make its industry-leading e-commerce services even more broadly available through a series of strategic alliances and agreements called the UPS Digital Access Program.    UPS has prioritized e-commerce growth by enhancing its network and services to enable faster deliveries, enhanced visibility and a broader range of delivery options. With the UPS Digital Access Program, UPS is establishing preferred relationships with leading digital platforms to seamlessly offer discounted UPS shipping rates and other shipping and logistics solutions to their merchant customers.Under this program, UPS today announced the collaboration with Stamps.com to offer discounted shipping rates to its 740,000 e-commerce customers. Stamps.com offers a portfolio of Internet shipping software solutions under the brand names ShipStation, ShippingEasy, ShipWorks, Stamps.com and Endicia. These solutions help small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses run their shipping operations more smoothly and successfully.“UPS has extensive experience and sophisticated knowledge of the needs of shippers and platform players operating within the e-commerce ecosystem,” said UPS Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Warren. “As the e-commerce shipper of choice, we are putting that experience to work to help our customers do more, with greater ease, across every aspect of the e-commerce value stream.”The UPS Digital Access Program helps e-commerce platforms provide a comprehensive suite of related order management, fulfilment and delivery services that can be utilized to simplify logistics complexity. This gives SMBs the opportunity to provide the same high-quality customer experience as large e-commerce companies.Launches New Tech-Enabled Solutions and Healthcare and Life Sciences CustomersAs UPS continues to grow its specialized set of solutions for healthcare and life sciences customers, the company today announced an innovative new technology-enabled supply chain solution for critical shipments and an enhanced global quality management system.Using multiple next-generation sensor technologies, UPS Premier will provide the most comprehensive priority-handling services ever offered by UPS for time-and temperature-sensitive packages. It is part of a UPS undertaking to retrofit key parts of the company’s network with smart, IoT systems to track healthcare packages.Additionally, the company is connecting all of its global healthcare and life sciences business under a single, dedicated UPS Healthcare and Life Sciences (HCLS) unit. The new unit includes operations and over 5,000 personnel from Marken, Polar Speed, and all 114 UPS healthcare facilities. The unit will have a dedicated and healthcare-trained salesforce and customer support teams for customers across the global network.UPS has also redesigned its Quality Management System (QMS) to reflect systems which exist today at many pharmaceutical companies. The QMS features a cloud based electronic document management system, global standard operating procedures (SOPs), best-in-class validation processes and global reporting tools.More Countries Gain Access to UPS EconomyUPS also announced today that customers in Germany, France, and the Netherlands will soon gain access to UPS Economy. This service offers businesses an economical and efficient shipping option to reach customers in countries outside the European Union (EU).Additional details concerning each of the product announcements are available on the UPS Pressroom at this link.About UPSUPS (NYSE: UPS) is a global leader in logistics, offering a broad range of solutions including transporting packages and freight; facilitating international trade, and deploying advanced technology to more efficiently manage the world of business. Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS serves more than 220 countries and territories worldwide. UPS was awarded America’s Best Customer Service company for Shipping and Delivery services by Newsweek magazine; Forbes Most Valuable Brand in Transportation; and top rankings on the JUST 100 list for social responsibility, the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, and the Harris Poll Reputation Quotient, among other prestigious rankings and awards. The company can be found on the web at ups.com or pressroom.ups.com and its corporate blog can be found at ups.com/longitudes The company’s sustainability eNewsletter, UPS Horizons, can be found at ups.com/sustainabilitynewsletter. To get UPS news direct, follow @UPS_News on Twitter. To ship with UPS, visit ups.com/ship.Glenn Zaccara
404-828-4663
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