How a simple turn can save money

Some times the big creative ideas that improve companies are the results of years of R&D and millions in development cost. Some times the game changing ideas are simply a shift of perspective that has huge implications.

UPS’s new reduced left hand turn routing is just that kind of simple concept that will return millions in results.

Taking left turns often requires idling to wait for traffic to pass through an intersection; wasting time, fuel and therefore money.

By designating routes that minimize left hand turns the delivery giant is lowering their fuel costs and speeding up delivery, which can only serve customers in the end. And, oh yeah, it’s safer.

“A small improvement?” you might ask. Well, with 88,000 vehicles on the road each day, making 15,000,000 - yes, that’s 15-million - deliveries, I guess it adds up.

In this space the discussion is so often about how to make creative leaps. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t see the importance of creative thinking in business. But it can feel daunting at times. “How and I going to come up with that huge idea?”

Well, examples like the UPS new left-turn policy show us that big ideas don’t have to be wildly involved nor cost tons of money to implement. Sure, the tracking system big brown implemented over the past few years cost millions to put in place - a system that tells them which parcels go in which trucks and in what order, etc. helps to make this new policy practical across their entire fleet. But it was the simple concept to avoid left turns - creative leverage, as we often call it - that is providing the ultimate return in this example.