Author: Archive

NHS delivery force on strike

Posted by | Sep 21, 2006 | |

Hundreds of NHS workers will stage the biggest strike in the health service for almost 20 years today, in a bitter row over privatisation.
Workers at NHS Logistics, who deliver goods ranging from bedpans to food to hospitals and GP surgeries across England, will walk out at 10pm for 24 hours in protest at being transferred to German-owned delivery giant DHL.
They will stage a second 24 hour stoppage on September 26 to coincide with a debate on the health service at next week’s Labour party conference.
The workers voted last week to take industrial action after the Government confirmed the transfer of their jobs to DHL in a 10-year contract which Unison said was worth GBP3.7 billion.
Karen Jennings, the union’s head of health, said: “Our members have worked hard to build NHS Logistics into an award-winning service and don’t deserve to be treated in this way. There is simply no logical explanation for this transfer.”

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Postcomm reviews Royal Mail proposals to change its Special Delivery Next Day service

Posted by | Sep 21, 2006 | |

Postcomm, the independent postal services regulator, is seeking views on Royal Mail’s proposal to limit what can be sent through its Special Delivery Next Day service and be covered by its compensation arrangements.

Royal Mail would like to:
a) exclude valuable items, such as cash and jewellery from the service;
b) reduce the additional levels of compensation that customers can buy, from a maximum GBP2,500 to the standard GBP500; and
c)introduce a separate Special Delivery High Value service which would allow customers to post items of value and to claim compensation for lost or damaged high value items.

It argues that it needs to make these changes in order to help ensure its staff are safer when delivering high value items.

At the moment, customers using the Special Delivery Next Day service are able to claim compensation if items of value are lost or damaged. If the changes that Royal Mail wishes to introduce are approved by Postcomm, customers using the standard Special Delivery service will not be able to seek compensation for lost or damaged items which contain items of value.

The Special Delivery High Value service that Royal Mail wishes to introduce would be more expensive than the standard Special Delivery service, but would allow the conveyance of high value items that Royal Mail is proposing to exclude from the standard Special Delivery compensation arrangements.

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FedEx's wheels firmly on the ground in trucking Andrew Ward on how the delivery group's strategy to expand into the lighter truckload segment is paying off

Posted by | Sep 21, 2006 | |

FedEx is building an increasingly powerful presence in the US road freight market, expanding its delivery capabilities beyond parcels into a broader range of cargo.

Revenues from FedEx Freight, its trucking division, rose 20 per cent in the 2006 fiscal year, which ended in May, and accounted for more than 11 per cent of the group’s Dollars 32bn total.

Investors are hoping to see the positive trend continue today when FedEx reports first-quarter results.

This month, the group completed the Dollars 780m acquisition of Watkins Motor Lines, a large US truck company, further strengthening its presence in the sector. With more than Dollars 1bn of annual revenues, Watkins will increase the scale of FedEx Freight by about a third.

The deal came a year after UPS, FedEx’s biggest competitor, entered the road freight market through the Dollars 1.3bn acquisition of Overnite Corporation.

Both FedEx and UPS are focused on the Less-than-Truckload (LTL) segment, which handles lighter loads than the heavy truckload carriers.

FedEx wanted Watkins because it specialises in long haul, nationwide deliveries that differ from the group’s existing short haul, regional services.

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American Airlines announces new postal contract

Posted by | Sep 21, 2006 | |

American Airlines today signed a 5-year service agreement with the U.S. Postal Service potentially worth USD500 million in revenue to American, which is the largest single contract ever awarded to American’s Cargo division.
The previous contract with the Postal Service, executed in 2003, narrowed the number of carriers from 50 to only 13 and instituted stringent new requirements for the on-time delivery of mail by contracted carriers. To accommodate the requirements of that contract, American completely re-engineered its mail processes. Today, American is a preferred carrier of the Postal Service and carries more mail than any other passenger airline.

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Seur invests 10 million in its new Lisbon head office

Posted by | Sep 20, 2006 | |

Seur opened its new facilities yesterday in the Greater Lisbon area, on which it has spent ten million euros. Seur’s managing director for Portugal, Roberto Abarca, told Gaceta that the company aims to end the year with a turnover of €35 million, 16% up on 2005 (€30 million). This figure will make Seur “the second-largest express delivery firm” in Portugal after the state-owned corporation Correos.
With nine offices in Portugal – including one on the island of Madeira – Seur plans to open its first centre on the Azores archipelago in the coming months. Abarca said the Spanish firm’s subsidiary seeks to reinforce its leadership position in Spain-Portugal exchanges and increase the weight of the logistics business, which now accounts for 7% of turnover. The new facilities – at only a few kilometres from the national capital – cover 40,000 square metres, of which 11,000 are given over to storage.
Seur Portugal employs 330 people and operates 189 vehicles. The group, chaired by Manuel Valle, made sales of €574 million in 2005, and targets 8% growth this year.

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Canada Post Introduces New Stamp with Lasting Appeal! Pennywise Canadians to benefit from new PERMANENT tm stamp

Posted by | Sep 20, 2006 | |

Canada Post today announced the introduction of a new non-denominated stamp that will retain its value forever. The PERMANENT™ stamp will be accepted at the basic domestic Lettermail rate and replaces next year’s 52¢ domestic rate definitive stamps. The PERMANENT stamp will eliminate the need to purchase 1¢ stamps after a rate increase, doing away with the need for Canadians to worry about ‘using up’ postage stamps before a rate increase takes effect.

“The PERMANENT stamp will make doing business with Canada Post that much easier,” said Moya Greene, president and CEO of Canada Post. “Canadians can easily be pennywise with this customer-responsive initiative from Canada Post.”

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Royal Mail sets up online system to support new post pricing structure

Posted by | Sep 19, 2006 | |

Royal Mail has implemented an online pricing application to handle the changes it made to its letter and package pricing last month. The changes in the pricing structure, the first in 100 years, link the cost of postage to the size and weight of an item, rather than its weight alone.Technology supplier Selectica redeveloped the Royal Mail’s legacy online pricing calculator and used Java code to support the new Pricing in Proportion structure. The system, which is used by organisations that have large, complex mailing requirements, uses Selectica’s Java-based pricing and configuration engine, the Pricing Configurator, which integrates into Royal Mail’s existing Java-based portal, which uses software from ATG.The Pricing Configurator will also link into new online applications, such as Stampnow, which allows users to buy and print their own postage stamps once they have calculated the correct price.Royal Mail has worked with Selectica since 2001 and was using a vanilla version of its pricing software, which was not integrated into the postal service’s e-commerce platform.

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Off with her head! Royal row as queen stamped out

Posted by | Sep 19, 2006 | |

Britain’s Royal Mail introduced one of the most radical changes ever to the postal system Tuesday, letting customers buy stamps online — but the move sparked a royal row centred on the queen’s head.
People unwilling to wait in lengthy post office queues or those who have run out of stamps when the shops are closed will be able to print out unique bar codes directly onto envelopes or sticky labels at the click of a mouse.
Royal Mail said the move was one of the most important to the postal system since the introduction of the Penny Black — the world’s first adhesive stamp — in 1840.

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