Royal Mail has recently implemented an Intermec data capture system to help it keep track of the hundreds of millions of Recorded Signed For, Special Delivery and Royal Mail Tracked parcels it handles each year.
Prior to deploying the system items were scanned to the delivery office and signatures were collected on the doorstep manually.
Now, once the item is scanned and a signature is captured it is sent via GPRS to Royal Mail’s central database where it is then displayed on the track and trace site within minutes.
The mail and packet carrier now has doorstep scanning capability on 24,000 delivery routes and over the next month it will be extending this to its smaller delivery offices, increasing the total number of routes to 25,500, covering 99 per cent of its motorised delivery routes.
Royal Mail chose the Intermac CN3 following five months of testing at 13 of its delivery offices. The software used was also designed to be as simple as possible and as such out of a user base of 25,000 drivers per day the company is only experiencing 100 helpdesk calls.
The project began in September 2007, with the first phase of development starting in January 2008. By August 2008 all contracts were signed and the software and systems were in place. From August to December Royal Mail deployed 2,500 devices per week to 150 offices and trained some 3,500 users each seven days.
By December, 1,500 delivery offices totalling 35,000 staff were trained up and the organisation was scanning 800,000 items per week using the devices.
