The UPS game and Integrad: serious games for delivery drivers
UPS built its Integrad training center to teach driver recruits through simulations, a mock town and a UPS game that puts trainees in the driver's seat. In 2010 about 10 percent of its trainees failed, against roughly 30 percent in the older classroom course.
Updated
Why UPS built Integrad
UPS found that younger drivers needed far more time to become proficient and that more of them left during initial training. With a $1.8 million Department of Labor grant, the company studied how young people learn in a world of video games and smartphones. Working with MIT, Virginia Tech and the Institute for the Future, it built the Integrad training facility outside Washington, D.C., with 3-D simulations and webcasts alongside classroom teaching, and recordings that show trainees how they look in action.
A Wall Street Journal report from April 7, 2010 said about 30 percent of driver candidates failed the traditional training. Of the 1,629 trainees who had completed Integrad from its start as an experiment in 2007, only 10 percent had failed. Integrad takes a week within a six-week program that includes 30 days driving a truck in the real world.
What trainees do
Trainees rotate through stations built around UPS's 340 Methods, the prescribed techniques for tasks from lifting boxes to picking a package from a shelf. A slip-and-fall simulator uses a greased floor and slippery shoes. In a replica village called Clarkville, with real streets, signs and simulated delivery sites, they drive a real truck and must finish five deliveries in 19 minutes, while instructors toss footballs or traffic cones into their path.
The UPS game itself is a video game in which an avatar enters rooms and has to spot competitors' packages, a skill drivers need for finding sales leads. The company employed 99,000 drivers in the United States and expected to hire 25,000 over five years as baby boomers retired, and a second Integrad was due to open in the Chicago area that summer. UPS said the methods exceeded expectations on driver safety, new-driver turnover and time to proficiency.
What is true today
A trade report from June 27, 2016 called a new site in West Boylston, Massachusetts UPS's ninth next-generation driver training facility. It named Atlanta, McKinney in Texas, Menlo Park in California, suburban Chicago, Phoenix, Portland in Oregon and Landover in Maryland as the other US sites, plus a planned site in Cologne, Germany, and described a one-week course on a Clarkville USA outdoor course. The current number of sites and the present form of the UPS game are not confirmed.
Frequently asked questions
What is UPS Integrad?
Integrad is a UPS driver training facility that combines classroom teaching, simulators and a replica outdoor town with hands-on practice for new driver recruits.
What is the UPS game used in driver training?
It is a video game in which trainees control an avatar and identify competitors' packages to practice finding sales leads. Its current form is not confirmed.
Did Integrad reduce failures?
UPS reported that only 10 percent of 1,629 trainees had failed Integrad by 2010, compared with about 30 percent failing the traditional course.