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GO! Express & Logistics opens high-performance hub in Central Germany

Posted by | Jan 17, 2008 | |

GO! opens new hub in Niederaula German express company GO! Express & Logistics has opened a new EUR 7 million sorting centre in Niederaula, Central Germany. After eight months of construction, the new hub was put into operation in the night from 11 to 12 January 2008.

The hub is due to the positive development of parcel volumes with continuous double-digit growth rates, the company said. GO! decided to expand after its current hub in nearby Neuenstein reached its capacity limits of 10,000 parcels a day in a time-frame of 3 hours.

“With the new hub we have now created a central handling point that has enough capacity for the next 10-15 years due to the modular system in terms of area and sorting technique,” said GO! CEO Ralf-Hans Dierks. The ceremonial opening is planned for this spring.

The 30,000 sqm facility provides a 3,600 sqm handling terminal with a completely automatic sorting system. Capacity is designed for 6,000 parcels per hour in the beginning and can be expanded to 15,000 parcels.

The main installation of the central hub is a high-performance sorter that handles parcels in a sensitive way. All the information is transported via a central volume, weighing and scanning system to the packages. The whole facility can be expanded through additional sorters and has been built with space for future extension.

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DHL to pay Contractors USD 25M (US)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

DHL will pay USD 25 million to settle a national class-action suit by some 1,400 contractors stemming from payment disputes dating back to 1994, according to company officials and one of the lawyers representing one of the contractors.

The contractors alleged that glitches in the DHL computer system – a legacy from Airborne Express, which DHL bought in 2003 — prevented certain types of shipments from being processed correctly, said R. Anthony Rupp III, a lawyer with the Buffalo firm of Rupp Baase who represented contractors involved in the case.

While linking data from shipments from across the country with confirmation information, the DHL system also mistakenly prevented any payment for those jobs, the lawsuit alleged.

DHL denies any such glitches in its computer system. “There are none,” said Josh Frank, DHL vice president of legal.

The company agreed to the settlement, Frank said, because such class action lawsuits can be distracting an expensive.

In an internal memo to DHL managers obtained by Traffic World, the company said it had settled “to avoid prolonged and expensive litigation” with a one-time payout that it hopes “as many contractors as possible” will pursue.

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Business Post says UK Mail Q3 revenues up 60 pct (UK)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Parcel carrier Business Post Group PLC said third-quarter revenues in its growing mail business lifted 60 pct over a year earlier as it announced group trading in line with expectations.

Business Post, which is challenging state-owned postal carrier Royal Mail, said its mail operation, UK Mail, won significant contracts with new customers including MBNA and Norwich Union in the period.

“With these new contracts, we now handle some 10 pct of all mail collected in the UK,” the group said in a trading statement.

Business Post said group revenues between Oct 1 and Dec 31 increased 13 pct over a year earlier. Underlying group revenues in the period lifted by 20 pct, excluding revenues from a contract with FedEx terminated in April last year.

Underlying parcels revenues in the period were up 6 pct on last year and the group said it continued to see good growth in its business-to-business parcels operations, which represent around 80 pct of parcels revenues.

In its business-to-consumer operations, which represents 15 pct of the parcels business, its period-on-period performance was consistent with the first half.

Revenues in its specialist services business for the period were in line with last year.
“We have achieved a good revenue performance during the third quarter, trading performance is in line with management expectations and overall the board expects good progress for the year,” the group said in its statement.

Business Post will report preliminary results for the year ended Mar 31, 2008, on May 21.

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Postcomm announces simplification of licensing framework (UK)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Postcomm has announced changes that will simplify procedures for licensing non-universal service operators. (The universal service is the geographically uniform postal service that is provided by Royal Mail.)

In 2007, Postcomm responded to suggestions that its current licensing arrangements did not go far enough in facilitating market entry for some small and medium sized potential mail operators. A consultation was launched on proposals to move to less prescriptive licensing for those seeking to enter the postal services market. Several of these amendments were meant to eliminate unnecessary regulation, thus helping to encourage competition to the benefit of all customers.

Amendment of the 2006 licensing framework:
– a reduction in application fees from GBP 1,000 to GBP 50, which it is hoped will help encourage small businesses to enter the market, and
– the removal of the licence requirement on all licensees to have guarantees or contractual arrangements in place to ensure the delivery of mail if an operator fails so that, in future, other operators can respond directly to what the market demands, rather than to regulatory requirements.
– Postcomm believes that effective competition can better protect the interests of postal customers than regulation and is aiming to ensure that its licensing rules support the developing competitive market. Nothing being proposed will affect Postcomm’s ability to enforce licence conditions or lead to any substantial reduction in protection for mail customers.

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Steinbrueck presses for Deutsche Post to keep sales tax exemption (Germany)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck plans to maintain Deutsche Post AG’s exemption from Germany’s general sales tax, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

The move would rebuff economy minister Michael Glos, who is seeking to limit Deutsche Post’s existing tax break to services to households and small businesses, the newspaper said.

Companies that deliver letters countrywide at ‘affordable prices’ should be spared the general sales tax of 19 pct, the paper quoted the documents as saying.

This would leave only Deutsche Post benefiting from the exemption, the paper said.

Competitors of Deutsche Post including PIN Group have claimed that new minimum wage rules favour Deutsche Post and are forcing them to abandon or rein in plans to compete with the former postal services monopoly across Germany.

They have also said Deutsche Post’s tax break puts them at an even greater disadvantage.

The sales tax exemption is designed to reward Deutsche Post for delivering mail to even the remotest parts of Germany.

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Itella Information expands to Poland

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Itella Group is expanding to Poland. Itella Information has signed an agreement on acquiring the business operations of BusinessPoint S.A, a Polish company specialising in printing and document management. The deal is conditional, requiring e.g. the approval of the Polish competition authorities. Vendors are the owners of the company and they will continue in Itella’s service.

BusinessPoint is one of the largest service providers in its field in Poland, posting net sales of approximately EUR 15 million in 2006 and employing a staff of 100 permanent employees.
– For some time now, Itella Information has been investigating the possibilities of expanding into the Polish market. In Poland, the outsourcing of printing and document management operations is only in its initial stages, and expansion into new, growing markets in Poland is a natural direction for Itella Information’s growth, comments Heikki Länsisyrjä, business group director at Itella Information.
– This deal allows us to create even more innovative services for the Polish market. Itella Information is an experienced service operator in the field of information logistics, and we can benefit from that experience and develop new services, particularly in the fields of e-invoicing and e-transactions, says Jacek Zaremba, Managing Director of BusinessPoint S.A.

Besides companies in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Baltic countries Itella Group operates also in Russia where Itella opened a logistics centre last year. Poland will be the tenth country where Itella operates.

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Q-Post to test new technology

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Qatar is leading an initiative in collaboration with the Universal Postal Union (UPU) to ensure that payments between countries are made on time.

The General Postal Corporation (Q-Post) is hosting a meeting at the General Post Office to determine which company would be best suited to provide the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

Ali Mohammed Al Ali, General Manager of Q-Post, told reporters: “Most likely the pilot project will begin from March and run for three months. We have to see what technology to use. It could be from Spain or China for example. This meeting will help us determine which system to use.”

Catina Aghayan, Quality and Development Consultant with Q-Post, told The Peninsula: “This is a pilot project for the whole region and is a first for the whole (postal) industry. It is meant for quality service improvement.”

She said by 2009-2010, all international payments will be linked to the quality of services. Failure to meet quality standards would result in penalties, said Aghayan.

The system will test a scientific and accurate system for payment and also enable a monitoring of service. “After the three-month period, the results will be passed on to the UPU,” said Aghayan.

Qatar is one of the ten member countries who constitute the Quality Steering Committee of the UPU.

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ABB Robotics selected as pre-qualified integrator for USPS

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

ABB Robotics has been selected by the United States Postal Service (USPS) as a pre-qualified integrator for general material handling systems, expanding the company’s scope of supply beyond robotic containerization systems (RCS), which ABB has been providing to the USPS since 1999.

ABB has provided 167 robotic containerization systems to USPS facilities throughout the U.S. Through the RCS program, ABB has delivered other robot automation and control systems utilizing ABB controls and drives products. The success of this program led ABB to an extensive bidding and qualifying process for general material handling systems.

As a pre-qualified integrator, ABB, along with a select number of other suppliers, has been awarded with an ordering agreement extending for three years, placing ABB on the pre-qualified bid list for general mail handling automation.

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