TECHNOLOGY Every night at FedEx’s Memphis hub, workers gather in teams to conduct the flex and stretch exercises required before anyone starts handling anything. The packages they will be shifting are heading for the airport on flights and in trucks from across the US. The smell of cardboard mixes with the heady aroma of jet fuel as everyone gears up for the night’s big lift.
However, behind the trucks and vans, the yard mules and dollies, the fleet of almost 700 aircraft and the mass of conveyor belts (300 miles of them at the Memphis hub alone) are sophisticated IT systems. For it is technology that underpins FedEx’s business, helping the company shift an average of 6.5m packages around the world every day.
