Bar Codes Light the Way for FedEx’s New Jersey Hub

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. — As the winter solstice approaches, the sky darkens earlier and the lights at the FedEx Ground distribution hub here burn longer so that gifts adorned with impersonal bar codes can speed along cold conveyor belts toward their final destination at a rate of 540 feet per minute.

	Michael James - Transport Topics
	Jessie Acevedo wields a ring scanner, the first step in a package’s journey through FedEx’s New Jersey sorting hub, which is the largest in the company’s system.

Most of the packages, which cannot weigh more than 150 pounds, are business-to-business freight. Yet FedEx Ground, formerly RPS Inc., made sure the place was up and running in time for holiday traffic.

Tim Olsen, the hub’s managing director, said he anticipates that late fall will be his busiest time of year. Specifically, he thinks Dec. 18, the Monday before Christmas, will be the day of heaviest traffic.

In the middle of the noon sort, there is dull-but-useful freight moving about — a single automobile tire, a roll of carpet and a box of snow shovels.

Then there is the good stuff. Someone will get to open a 27-inch color television. A more contemplative sort will get her book club selection. A whole bunch of kids will get hockey sticks. And somewhere in the Northeast, a guy will spend the winter waiting for spring so that he can use his new golf clubs.

The bright star in the sky that guides all this movement is the humble bar code. Olsen and his people can propel parcels through nearly eight acres of building, from inbound truck to outbound truck, in anywhere between 90 seconds and three minutes — but only if the bar coding is right. If that is the case, they can sort 37,000 packages an hour at peak efficiency.

For the full story, see the Dec. 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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