One Day, 34 Million Packages: What Could Go Wrong?

UPS expects to deliver 34 million packages globally today, or 394 packages every second.

The company has invested $500 million to avoid last year's failure to deliver millions of packages in time for Christmas.

This year's projected record level for single day deliveries beats last year's "peak day" deliveries of 31 million, according to a UPS spokesman. The company delivers 17 million on an average day.

Here are some of the things that UPS has invested in:

1. Package Recipient Control

Customers can track the timing of packages using UPS MyChoice online or with a mobile app, also allowing consumers to set up alternative delivery locations like a neighbor's home or a UPS Store location, or as specific as a "back door."

Registered MyChoice members can get a free text or email message the day before the package arrives. If the initial delivery time doesn't work, there are options to reschedule or reroute the package for $5.

2. Workers Don't Have to Read Zip Codes

"Next Generation Sort Aisle" is UPS' system at three U.S. locations that scans packages quickly and flashes instructions to workers, so they don't have to memorize hundreds of ZIP Codes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"Basically, we can automatically re-route package sort so that when the UPSer scans a package it tells them what chute to put it in," a UPS spokesman told ABC News this morning.

3. Reroute Packages in Bad Weather

Before UPS' latest technology was implemented, a UPS supervisor would have to walk to about 50 workers in Atlanta separately about packages being rerouted and hope they would remember the note, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, UPS' system reroutes packages at a "moment's notice."