Tag: Royal Mail

Poste Italiane helps pave the way for the delivery of electronic postmarks

Posted by | Jul 30, 2008 | |

Poste Italiane’s Director General, Massimo Sarmi introduced an application to enable Posts the world over to deliver electronic postal certification marks.

The plug-in developed by Poste Italiane with the help of Microsoft applies an electronic postal certification mark that provides evidential proof of an electronic event, in a certain form, at a certain time, and involving one or more parties. This certification mark can be seen as the electronic equivalent of a registered letter. It brings all the benefits of the traditional paper-based postmark to electronic documents. Features such as date and time stamping, digital identity capture, content verification and encryption prove that the content of an electronic message has not been altered. The electronic postal certification mark acts as evidence of who signed what and when.

The Advanced Electronic Services user group, part of the UPU’s Telematics Cooperative (an association of UPU member countries that work together to develop technical applications for the benefit of the postal world), and countries currently using electronic postmarks also contributed their expertise to the project. These include Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Portugal and the United States.

With this application, the UPU will work to provide member countries wishing to offer electronic postal certification marks the necessary infrastructure to do so.

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GLS opens new depot in Netherlands

Posted by | Jul 29, 2008 | |

GLS opened a new depot in Alkmaar, Netherlands, replacing its smaller facility.

The new EUR 250,000 depot with 34 staff has the capacity to handle up to 8,000 parcels per day. It is located on a 3,800 sqm plot of land and has 38 docks for vehicles.

Due to the company’s high performance and safety requirements, the reserves of the old facility were exhausted, GLS said. Last year the parcel volumes of GLS Netherlands increased by 5 pct.

“As a start we currently handle 4,000 parcels per day”, says Milo Kars, Director Sales and Operations, GLS Netherlands. “Since we can extend the shipment volumes without difficulty anytime, we will have enough leeway upwards considering our continuing positive development.”

The company invested in a state-of-the-art security system and video surveillance equipment. A total of 30 cameras control all shipments on their way through the depot connecting the recordings with barcode scanning data. “Parcel handling in Alkmaar is not only faster but also safer”, comments Kars. “We can trace back each individual shipment in a reliable way.”

GLS Netherlands said that the new location close to the motorway will benefit customers throughout the region.

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Post Office travel services sees boom in pre-olympics yuan sales (UK)

Posted by | Jul 28, 2008 | |

During July 2008 the UK’s largest provider of foreign currency the Post Office has seen a 44 per cent increase in its sales of Chinese yuan compared to the same period last year.

Post Office head of travel services Helen Warburton said: “The huge demand for yuans at Post Office bureaux de change over the last few weeks shows that many people are planning to travel to China. We advise Olympic travellers to make sure they take a mix of travellers cheques, payment cards and currency.

“Although ATMs are widely available across Beijing and China, the acceptance of foreign debit and credit cards can be a bit hit and miss so travellers should make sure they take a sufficient supply of yuan to meet their initial day to day needs.”

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Royal Mail unveils details of GBP 1.2bn IT spend (UK)

Posted by | Jul 28, 2008 | |

Royal Mail has lifted the wraps on how it plans to spend up to GBP 1.2bn on IT-related projects over the next three to four years as it fights growing competition from rival delivery services.

Robin Dargue, the group’s Chief Information Officer and Technical Director, told Computer Weekly that a robust IT and logistics infrastructure will allow the company to develop new markets. “Adding IT content to products and services increases their value,” he says.

The crux of Royal Mail is its capacity to deliver the right item to the right person, Dargue says.

This is particularly so in addressing the opportunities offered by the burgeoning online retail sector, which is worth GBP 4.5bn and is set to grow to GBP 28bn by 2011, according to research firm IMRG.

Royal Mail is supplying up to 25,000 Intermec wireless handheld terminals to delivery staff to record customers’ confirmation of the delivery of packages.

It is also installing mail sorting equipment, mobile handsets, delivery vehicles and online systems so that staff and customers will be able to track and trace each item in the system.

Dargue says “flats” – A4 magazines, catalogues and brochures, make up about one in six items of the typical daily mail bag. Royal Mail is installing high-speed sorting machines from Solystic to handle flats at its Langley plant near Heathrow.

It has also ordered upgrades from Siemens for integrated mail processors (IMPs), and replacements from Solystic for automated mail sorters. By March 2008 it had replaced the codemark printers that print machine-readable instructions on mail to speed sorting. So far, it has upgraded 21 IMPs.

Royal Mail hopes these improvements will give it an unequalled logistics system that it can offer to customers in central and local government as well as business.

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Postal workers to become mobile Post Offices

Posted by | Jul 26, 2008 | |

Poste Italiane is rolling out a mobile postal service using Italy’s postmen and postwomen. The new service which has already been trialed in Rome, allows customers to top up their mobile phones, send registered mail items and order prescription medicines.

Using a hand-held device, postal workers can even print receipts and the scheme is expected to be adopted throughout most of Italy over the next few years. One advantage of the concept is the ability to track registered letters along the route which it is thought would also work well for legal documents such as court papers.

It is hoped that more services can be added to the scheme over time, once the support structure is in place. The postal prescription service will connect patient, doctor, and pharmacist, making the ordering and delivery of prescription medicines a snap. Whilst it is not expected to replace post offices, the service should prove popular for smaller transactions and is another example of Italy’s drive to modernise the post office network.

Norway Post introduced a door-to-door alcohol service via the post office network in February this year and Royal Mail is already investing in tracking and scanning devices in the UK to improve existing delivery services. It is thought that postal delivery workers in the UK could offer similar services to those being developed by the Italians, and in a liberalised postal market, all postal operators are keen to look at ideas that would offer a commercial advantage as well as protecting the future of postal networks in a declining letters market. The Italians seem to be leading the way.

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