Supply Chain Dive: “When almost 2,000 freshmen showed up at Tulane on Aug. 21, their shipped boxes were already in their rooms. Students pulled up to the dorm at their appointed times, and volunteer ‘krewe’ whisked everything out of the car, transporting belongings in laundry carts to the dorm rooms, while parents moved the cars and students got their ID cards and keys … For the past 18 years, the New Orleans university allowed freshmen to ship boxes to school ahead of arrival, as 90% of its students travel more than 500 miles to get there … Boxes used to be sorted and stored in 53-foot tractor trailers on campus to be claimed on move-in day. But no longer.”
“After successful pilots the last few years, Tulane paid a contractor to sort, store and move shipped boxes into all freshman dorms, freeing up elevator use and lowering parent and student stress levels on what Tulane hopes is an easy and happy first day of About 60 campuses now use USS moving services, with another 40 renting equipment like luggage carts, so the schools don’t have to buy and store them … Tulane is the first school not charging freshmen for the cost to deliver shipped boxes to the room as part of the move-in experience, and other schools are watching with interest.”
“Tulane uses its own off-site warehouse to receive and sort boxes for move-in, plus USS’ rented warehouse. Tulane gave incoming freshmen a special address for a two-week arrival window starting Aug. 1 … During the first few days of the two-week window, 250 packages arrived daily from FedEx to the USS warehouse, and up to 200 packages daily from the other carriers … Students may get an email from USS when their FedEx package is delivered, sometimes with photos of the dorm room number and packages sitting on the bed.”
