Who Knows Where You Are? The Satellite Knows

Michael Morvice wanted his Minute Man Delivery service in Gardena, Calif., to live up to its name. A big obstacle: dispatching the 40-truck fleet efficiently. Dispatchers had to remember each driver's route and were constantly squawking over two-way radios to track their drivers. Now, dispatchers know at all times where each truck is and can alter routes all day long--adding last-minute pickups, for instance. The bottom line: Morvice says he can dispatch a truck in half the time.

The technology that is speeding up Minute Man, called a global positioning system (GPS), has huge potential in all sorts of businesses, from tracking cargo on ocean-going freighters to guiding jumbo jets. Developed by the Defense Dept. at a cost of $3 billion over the past 15 years, GPS proved itself in the gulf war when soldiers were able to pinpoint their positions in the trackless desert by consulting boxes the size of paperback books that took readings from satellites.