Dave Barnes learned a lot about how UPS operates in his ascent from part-time package handler to senior vice president and CIO. He joined the Atlanta company in 1977 as a college student and this week was elevated to the company’s highest technology position.
In between Barnes held multiple positions in the U.S. and abroad, including stints in operations, finance, internal audit and at UPS Airlines. Most recently he was vice president of customer and operations application portfolios, charged with coordinating global application development and overseeing the direction of 3,000 of UPS’s 4,700 IT workers.
The experience of working in different departments at UPS has given Barnes business knowledge that’s key to being a successful CIO, he says. “You can’t just talk technology, you’ve got to balance that with business acumen.”
As CIO, Barnes will have say-so over the company’s $1 billion IT budget and an opportunity to help set corporate strategy as a member of the UPS Management Committee, which directs day-to-day management of the company.
Improving operations requires an attitude of “constructive dissatisfaction,” he says. “We’re a good company with market-leading processes. But there are always ways to make it better. The key to that is to be constructively dissatisfied. You’ve got to have a willingness and a desire to learn.”
Security is an area that continues to be a priority for UPS. Barnes bears the weight of the typical IT security issues posed by viruses and other threats. In addition, physical security of buildings and vehicles is becoming more critical to IT, as these resources play more important roles in synchronizing global commerce, he says.
“The movement of goods and the movement of information are really tied together. You can’t have one without the other in today’s environment,” Barnes says. “In order to have that information flowing, you have to have secure systems.”
One of the company’s current challenges is to continually improve a system for tracking goods that’s flexible and comprehensive enough to support multiple technologies. For example, UPS depends on existing barcode scanning systems built around the familiar handheld unit UPS drivers carry, called Delivery Information Acquisition Device (DIAD). Meanwhile, it’s been piloting radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for tracking goods at the case and palette level throughout the supply chain.
“The movement of goods through the supply chain can be captured by a combination of technologies. It might be RFID, it might be delivery information from the DIAD, it might be barcode scanners,” Barnes says.
Barnes succeeds Ken Lacy, who is retiring after 37 years with UPS.
