What can brown do for you? terminolgy unload/sort

Now that I am going to be just sharing some fun stories about UPS I might as well knock out some terminology of UPS so you aren't lost.

Let's go with the unload area first. There were originally 18 doors in the back, then it pretty much doubled to 39 or something like that. Door 1/2 were never used (in the beginning...story coming) due to Pen 1's return belt, small sort, and Sunrise sort. Sunrise sort was another sort that ran during the same time that only did next day air. Now since NDA was guaranteed by 10 AM you can see the importance of getting that area clean.

On doors 7 & 13 there were return belts from the load side. The were for missorts. In other words, if a package was meant for pen 8 but went to pen 5, pen 5 would put it on the belt and it would come back to us. Door 7 return belt was from Pen 4, pen 5, pen 6 & pen 7. Door 13 was for mainly pens 8-11. Once these slides were down, they needed to be completely cleared before you could lift them. We were also told that the return belts needed to run all day because the belts were also used for bulk on load side.

In the sort aisle, there was a slide in front of the sorters were the packages would drop down from the main feed belt. The main feed belt had a bunch of belts going into each "feeder" (the long trailers) called an extendo belt because it could move back into the feeder. Off the main belt were these metal bars that moved called divertors because the "diverted" the packages to open areas on the slides.

Now a sorter was supposed to be at the drop point, where the packages came off the divertor down to the slide. Behind a sorter was 5 main belts, but became 6. Each belt represented 2 pens. If the sorter didn't push the package to the side all the way it could be a missort. Below the sorter was another belt for small sort. Small sort was a sort aisle for envelopes and small packages only.

Another term used alot was "irregs" which stood for irregular... duh right? Anyways an irreg was any package over 70lbs or 5 ft long. They were supposed to be pulled out of the feeder by the unloader. Irregs were never meant to make it to the sort aisle.

One final note, the sort aisle was a good 4 -5 5 feet above the rest of the unload. So the extendos would go into the feeder easier and bulk drivers (for the irregs) could drive under the sort aisle and pick up irregs. So when a sort sup wanted to talk to an unload sup they would talk across a belt and looking down at the unload sup. Looking back I guess that kinda fed my ego that I was better? maybe?

Ok that's a ton of information. Next time load side. Then I can continue with some stories. I was thinking about it though. My first trip to load side was pretty good. I didn't get into any fights...but still had fun.