Tag: Europe

Survey reveals four-day wait for An Post to deliver

Posted by | Nov 12, 2007 | |

Ireland has one of the slowest postal services in Europe, with standard letters taking up to four days toarrive, Irish Examinerresearch reveals.

Over two months the Irish Examiner posted more than 100 letters from 10 city and rural locations. Only 73 pct came on time, indicating An Post is likely to break its promise of achieving a next-day delivery rate of 80 pct by the end of the year.

Since 2003, An Post’s next-day delivery rates have averaged about 72 pct of all mail, in breach of the 94 pct target set by the official postal watchdog ComReg.

Consumers’ Association of Ireland chief executive Dermott Jewell called for an overhaul of An Post.

“We are looking at a postal system in chaos and with Christmas on the way it’s An Post’s busiest time of year. This problem has got to be addressed by ComReg, who should either guarantee a service or a system of refunds,” he said.

In the Irish Examiner survey, a batch of 10 letters posted in Dublin all arrived the next day but another batch posted a month later took up to four days.

Letters posted from Co Offaly to Cork arrived the next day in one part of the city but took two days toarrive to other parts. Letters addressed in Irish took up to four days to reach Co Tipperary, yet one sent to England arrived sooner.

Yesterday An Post said performance figures for April to June showed next- day delivery rates had risen to 78 pct from 73 pct during the same months in 2006.

Head of communications Anna McHugh said: “We are fully committed to reaching our interim target of 80 pct next-day delivery this year and to achieving the target of 94 pct within three years.”

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Correos delivers on the promise of RFID

Posted by | Nov 12, 2007 | |

Embracing technology to help monitor and improve its delivery service, Correos launched Q-RFID, a quality-control system that taps 13,000 passive RFID labels, 2,300 antennas, and more than 331 readers at the post office’s 16 APCs (Automated Processing Centres).

The largest European RFID deployment ever, Q-RFID brought together hardware from Symbol Technologies and software in the form of Sybase’s RFID Anywhere. Aida Centre was brought on as a systems integrator to build and integrate the RFID technology into existing back-end solutions.

According to Regina Defarges, project lead and organizational deputy director at Correos, the project was undertaken to help audit the efficiency of postal operations and improve delivery times by streamlining the post office’s operating procedures.

Antennas at each APC activate tags on mail and send data from the tags to readers, which in turn send the data to the main server. Business logic within RFID Anywhere then identifies bottlenecks in the system by looking for exceptions to built-in business rules. When an exception occurs — say, a letter overstays its three-hour window in one of the APCs — an alert is transmitted.

But the system delivers much more than a tap on the shoulder when the mail is not getting out. It also provides keen insights into operations, which when coupled with other systems, allows Correos to correct systemic factors that may be contributing to delivery delays.

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‘No vacancies’ signs go up in New York as dollar demand goes through the roof

Posted by | Nov 12, 2007 | |

Dollar frenzy has hit the high street with sales of the US currency now up 87 per cent on the same period last year for the Post Office®, the UK’s largest provider of foreign currency.

But UK holidaymakers hoping to cash in on the dollar crisis and book a Christmas shopping trip to the USA will have to look beyond the traditional favourite, New York, where most affordable hotels have already hung out the ‘no vacancies’ signs. New York flights are also heavily sold – with little or no availability for weekend trips.

The solution for shopaholics keen to snap up bargains Stateside, says the Post Office®, is to consider rival cities. Las Vegas, Boston, Chicago and Miami all have shops to rival New York and plenty of pre-Christmas hotel availability.

Post Office® head of travel services Helen Warburton said: “Bargain hunters with more pounds in their pockets after sterling breached the USD 2 watershed can make significant savings on iPods and Playstation 3s, designer jeans and fashion accessories just as easily in cities like Las Vegas and Boston as in New York.”

With the pound riding higher against the US dollar than at any time since 1981, the latest Post Office® data suggests that record numbers are planning to head off across the Atlantic.

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TNT speeds up with mobile technology

Posted by | Nov 11, 2007 | |

The rollout of wearable mobile computers and scanners is paying dividends on the global mail company’s previous investment in tracking technology.
TNT has made significant improvements to its delivery services with the rollout of mobile computers.

TNT Express UK, which is the carrier’s largest division and its main business-to-business arm, has reduced vehicle loading time by 30 per cent and achieved on-time delivery rates of 98 per cent since rolling wearable computers and scanners out to its delivery drivers a year ago.

TNT Express looked to long-standing provider Motorola, to provide its MC9000 series for drivers to be able to operate the devices even when wearing gloves and has now implemented 2,750 devices for its UK van drivers, expanding to over 8,500 across the Europe, Middle East and Africa division. The UK TNT Express Specialist Services delivery team opted for 900 smaller, lighter MC70 devices.

TNT Express also wanted a scanner that left workers’ hands free, to optimise productivity and vehicle loading time. As a result, TNT played an integral part in the beta testing of the WT4000 wearable scanner. It is currently using 155 of these wearable mobile computers in the UK and has plans to implement a further 800.

TNT is now planning to implement further wearable mobile computers and MC9000s worldwide and is currently investigating how the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can help its business.

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TNT Innight Austria wins Fiat spare parts contract

Posted by | Nov 10, 2007 | |

TNT Innight Austria, the overnight express company, has signed a contract with Fiat to provide night-time deliveries of time-sensitive shipments for the brands Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Fiat Professionals.

Fiat Group Automobiles S.p.A. has recently relocated its spare parts centre for CEE countries including Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia from Guntramsdorf in Austria to Bielsko Biala in Poland.

TNT Innight Austria said it is now responsible for daily transportation of the spare parts from the centre in Poland, situated 650 km from Vienna, to the regional distribution centres by the next morning from where the shipments are delivered on time to traders and authorized repair shops.

This procedure guarantees real-time delivery service and at the same time a low storage level at the trading companies. Additionally, TNT Innight also handles return shipments.

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