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DHL inaugurates new Country Office and Service Center in Colombo

Posted by | May 24, 2007 | |

DHL inaugurated its new state-of-the-art Country Office and Service Center at 148, Vauxhall Street in Colombo. The event was officiated by Scott Price, CEO, DHL Express – Asia Pacific, and Romesh David, President – Transportation and IT Groups, John Keells Holdings.

The purpose-built Euro 2 million (LKR 260 million), 40,000-square-feet facility houses 130 staff for both the administration and operations arms of DHL Express in Sri Lanka, as well as a 24/7 call centre.

During the last few years, DHL Express has made significant investments of close to EUR 2.5 million towards the development und upgrading of its network infrastructure in Sri Lanka, including DHL’s Gateway/Customs Bonded Warehouse in Ja-Ela with its innovative Quality Control Center (QCC). The first of its kind in Sri Lanka, the QCC serves as the nerve centre for all DHL Express Sri Lanka’s shipment movement control, providing real-time visibility and proactive operational crisis management 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

With the QCC, DHL has also introduced the Quality Shipment Monitoring System (QSMS), which is the latest addition to DHL’s monitoring tools. QSMS allows shipment monitoring to be done real time for the whole process, from pickup until uplift for outbound shipments and after arrival and until final delivery for inbound shipments. This has allowed DHL a more proactive approach in managing possible shipment delays, e.g. caused by flight delays or bad weather, including activating contingency plans and notifying customers.

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World Mail Award winners celebrated

Posted by | May 24, 2007 | |

The 2007 World Mail Awards, presented on Monday night at a top London hotel, brought out the very best from postal services around the globe. More than 350 senior executives from the industry gathered to hear yachtsman, hero & adventurer, Pete Goss, present the coveted trophies for best practice and excellence.

This was the 8th year the Awards have been run by Triangle and they continue to grow in both prestige and breadth of coverage, with two new awards and four new sponsors for 2007. The distinguished panel of judges met only hours before the presentation to select the eventual winners of the awards from the 38 finalists.

The twelve winners competed against a broad geographical diversity of applicants and a wide variety of products and services submitted by operators and suppliers to the mail industry.

This year’s World Mail Award winners are as follows:

• Corporate Social Responsibility (sponsored by DHL Global Mail)
– Brazil Post for its Postal Bank project

• Customer Service (sponsored by Western Union)
– Canada Post Corporation for its Customer Value Management program

• e-Commerce (sponsored by Saudi Post)
– Deutsche Post AG for its ADDRESSDIALOG project

• Growth (sponsored by Q-Post)
– DHL Global Mail for its global letter-writing club LetterNet

• Industry Leadership (sponsored by Pitney Bowes)
– Jean-Paul Bailly, Chairman and CEO, La Poste

• Innovation (sponsored by Emirates Post)
– ampm for its delivery tracking solution eyeTrack

• People Management (sponsored by Australia Post)
– Masterlink Express for its ”Talents Maker” management academy training program

• Quality (sponsored by Magyar Posta)
– Singapore Post for SingPost Quality Excellence

• Retail Project (sponsored by Triangle)
– Aramex International for its SHOP&SHIP mailbox system

• Security (sponsored by Royal Mail)
– Royal Mail for its Mail Integrity Programme

• Technology (sponsored by Intermec)
– Denmark Post for its GIS route planning system

• Transformation (sponsored by IBM)
– Saudi Post for the creation of NAQEL

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Royal Mail fails to address database issue

Posted by | May 24, 2007 | |

The soap opera plotline concerning the “ownership” of postal addresses has taken another twist. According to leaked letters seen by the Guardian, the latest set of negotiations between government-owned agencies over payment for address data has broken down.

The saga provides a graphic example of an issue at the heart of Technology Guardian’s Free Our Data campaign – the bureaucracy and waste that ensue when state bodies treat vital data as an asset that must be made directly profitable.

The lifecycle of 23 Acacia Avenue – and every other postal address – begins with the local council, which is responsible for assigning a street name and number to new properties. Other government-owned agencies then draw on this information for their own purposes, including the creation of proprietary databases of addresses. If councils later want to use such databases, they must pay for the right – even if they provided the original data.

Arguments over the rights of one arm of the state to use another arm’s address database have soaked up much government time and money over the past five years. The current row is over a database of postcodes, the Postcode Address File, run by Royal Mail.

This is profitable, making GBP 1.58m on revenues of GBP 18.36m in 2005-06 (Royal Mail’s postcode database reveals its profitable side, April 26). Councils in England and Wales spend about GBP 2.5m a year on postcodes (paid to Ordnance Survey and commercial businesses, as well as Royal Mail).

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FedEx and Kinko's meet

Posted by | May 24, 2007 | |

Kinko’s has long been known for making things larger or smaller; FedEx for delivering — so it’s not a surprise that FedEx Kinko’s has opened a store to enlarge its services from less space.

FedEx Kinko’s aims to provide more services and products in a smaller space with its redesigned stores, one of which opened May 7 on Atlanta Highway.

Pearlie Cross, who manages the new store, has worked for FedEx since 1996. She said the Kinko’s part of the chain, once centered on college campuses, has changed its focus.

The new format debuted nationally late last summer with expectations of opening 200 stores by the end of this month.

Cross said the store carries about 700 items, including paper, writing instruments and digital storage media.

The expanded retail presence complements traditional services offered by FedEx and Kinko’s, she said.

Kinko’s has grown to more than a self-service copy center for college students scrambling to finish a term paper at some wee hour of the morning.

FedEx Kinko’s offers document services including finishing and presentation, Web-based printing and document management.

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USPS reaches key milestone in green purchases

Posted by | May 24, 2007 | |

The blue and white packages of the U.S. Postal Service are getting greener.

The agency says all of its Priority and Express Mail packages are now made with 100 percent recyclable paper. About 500 million such packages worth USD 6 billion are used each year, according to Postal Service spokeswoman Joanne Veto.

Though the agency already uses recycled paper for some packages, the move to 100 percent represents a “big switch,” Veto said. In the works for about two years, the change necessitated rewriting contracts with about 200 suppliers to require them to alter the composition of the paper they provide, Veto said. The new packages include 60 separate material components and 1,400 individual ingredients.

The switch, however, is “cost neutral” to both vendors and the agency, said Veto.

Postmaster General John Potter and other agency officials will discuss the environmental benefits of the switch at a May 30 news conference and luncheon.

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US express delivery firms biggest winners from China aviation deal

Posted by | May 24, 2007 | |

The biggest beneficiaries from the further opening of US-China aviation are likely to be US express delivery firms such as United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing industry sources.

A FedEx Corp executive was quoted as saying that the agreement will bring his company ‘virtually unfettered access’ to China beginning in 2011, the newspaper reported.

China’s market for express delivery is expanding by an average 28 pct a year – the fastest in Asia. The market, valued at 4.4 bln USD last year, will grow to 5.8 bln in 2007.

Under a pact agreed to on Wednesday, US and China agreed to begin talks in 2010 on an ‘open skies’ agreement.

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