Package Handler 101 - The Trailer and How to Load It

Package handlers at FedEx Ground are most often responsible for loading or unloading the trailers that travel across the country to deliver customers' packages to the sorting facilities. Today I want to talk a bit about the trailer and how you load it as well as some of the dangers that come with loading (or unloading!) a trailer.

Here in Portland we deal with two types of trailers. A normal trailer is shorter than the normal semi truck that you see and has a belly in between the wheels. Usually a truck pulls two of these shorter trailers. The long box is more like what a semi truck usually pulls and doesn't have a belly like the normal trailers do. Long boxes are also significantly more difficult to load and is better suited for taller package handlers (in other words, not me).

Typical FedEx trailers with bellies - usually pulled in pairs.

 Interior of a regular trailer, flaps closed over the belly.

These regular trailers have a set of roller built in above the belly. Boxes come down the chute and are then supposed to roll down towards the back of the trailer. Because of the number of boxes coming down the chute in most trailers, this rarely works out as planned. Facing the direction of the second image above, the package handler loads the right side of the belly, then the second side, and then begins in the nose (the part that connects to the truck) of the trailer and works their way to the opening of the trailer. It is important to note that long boxes do not come equipped with a set of rollers.

A long box attached to a truck. There is no belly.

 The interior of an older long box (they really haven't improved much from this).

 Long boxes in comparison to normal trailers (the shorter ones) from a Denver location.

Because the long box doesn't have a set of rollers installed inside, they dock at special doors on a hub that have been equipped with a set of heavy pull-out rollers. One of the reasons why long boxes tend to be more difficult to load is because these rollers have to be pulled to the end of the trailer and then pushed back gradually. The also take up much of the inside, leaving little room to pass through along the sides. Boxes often fall and get stuck in between the walls of the trailer and the rollers, making it hard to get in and out. Because the long box is taller than the typical smaller trailer, a load stand must be used at all times, and even then it is harder for shorter people to reach high enough to fill in the last couple of rows in a wall of boxes, as is expected by managers. I was injured in a long box both because I could not handle constantly reaching up as high as I could and I was not strong enough to push the heavy rollers back each time I finished a wall. I pulled the muscles in my back between my shoulders.

When building walls of boxes inside the trailers you have to avoid stacking them in columns. These fall over more easily and put a lot of strain on the bottom box. When unloaders are injured it is most often because of a badly built wall that includes columns has fallen on them. Head injuries are common in the unload areas. I've had nights where I've clocked out after being hit on the head three or four times in a single night because some loader at some other hub didn't care about their walls.

An image of what a properly built wall should and should not have.

In the image I put together above, I have marked the positive and negative aspects of this wall of 'boxes'. Obviously in real life things wouldn't be quite this symmetrical, but FedEx seems to think that this is how real life works, since their training images tend to look a bit like this (though more professionally done).

First, you can see that to the right of the image there is a column of boxes, which I have marked as wrong. This would create an unstable wall and put too much pressure on the boxes at the bottom. Obviously this column isn't very tall, so there wouldn't be as much pressure, but it can still be dangerous to unloaders. Second, I have two boxes with directional arrows on them. When loading the arrows are always supposed to be pointing up. As you can see, I checked the box with an arrow pointing up and crossed out the one with the arrow pointing to the right. Finally, you will see three small check mark next to three red Ts that the lines of the boxes form. This is overlapping the boxes and it makes walls stable and distributes the pressure on the boxes at the bottom. This method is also called the bricklayer method.

Today, my hub follows a loading priority system called VOLT. I have absolutely no idea what VOLT stands for or how to use it when loading trailers, so I can't teach you about that. I was trained on the Five Priorities of Loading system, which I still hold to, with my own modifications (because I don't load very often anymore so I can get away with more than regular loaders).

The five priorities of loading are cornerstone, base shelf, alternate shelf, filler, and top fill/crushables. The cornerstone is usually that massive, heavy box that you probably can't life more than a few inches off the ground. It is typically placed against the wall of the trailer, forming the first part of the base shelf, or the bottom row of boxes that starts your wall. Each row of boxes is called a shelf. Often you will have a taller box that reaches above the general height of the shelf you are building (such as the tall box on the right side of the image above). The part that goes above your current shelf forms an alternate shelf, where you can start another shelf above the one you are working on.

You will always have spaces in between boxes that need to be filled. That is where filler boxes come in handy. These are smaller boxes that can be placed in the gaps that are always part of a wall. This both increases cubes (the amount of cubic space you fill inside of the trailer) and the stability of the wall. Sometimes they are also referred to as wedge boxes.

Finally there are the top crushables, or top fill as we like to call it. More often than not, your wall is going to have space leftover at the top, between the last self and the ceiling. This needs to be filled as well, and there are a variety of boxes that can do the job. Flat, lightweight boxes are preferred, but anything small that is light, can be crushed, or is some kind of bag will work to fill in the space. The more space you fill the better your cubes are (and the more money the company saves!).

Another type of package that we get to deal with is the incompatible or IC (we pronounce it ink/inks). These packages do not come down a chute, but on a separate belt where they are manually pulled off and placed on a flat set of rollers next to the chute where they wait to be loaded. IC packages are not to be built into a wall if they are excessively heavy or an awkward shape. Specifically, metal and tires are not to be placed above the floor unless they are stacked on top of one another (for example, a stack of tires). IC packages include metal, tubs or containers of liquid, thin boxes (less than two fingers thick), wooden packages, packages weighing 100+ pounds, tires, and other miscellaneous items (I've often received igloo shaped dog houses and plastic kayaks/canoes).

And that, my friends, is the basics of loading. There are many other things that I could cover here, but that is for another post on another day. Just keep in mind that this is the basics - there are a lot of things that also come into play when you are loading, and some of these basics and standards are thrown out the door in favor of speed and simply getting the job done.

So, who wants to go get a job at FedEx now?