Tag: UK

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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Royal Mail says siphoned-off aid claim ‘nonsense’ (UK)

Posted by | Jul 26, 2008 | |

Royal Mail rejected suggestion that millions of pounds of state aid intended to maintain vital rural post office services may be siphoned off to help pay for postal deliveries.
A spokesman for the group said the suggestion in a report from the all-party Commons business and enterprise committee, which sparked outrage among north and north-east MPs, is “complete nonsense”.
He was replying to a special report from the committee which also urged the independent watchdog National Audit Office “investigate the financial arrangements for outreach services”. Tory Chairman Peter Luff said his committee had heard evidence from Post Office Managing Director Alan Cook that the GBP 358million it receives from Royal Mail does not cover the cost of services it provides.
He said: “It is possible that this is down to inefficiency at Post Office Ltd, but it is also possible that it is because Royal Mail Group is inappropriately using Post Office Ltd, which receives some state support, to cross-subsidise its mail services.”
The spokesman said: “It’s complete nonsense to suggest that Royal Mail uses Post Office to subsidise the mails business and as Post Office Ltd made very clear, the issue is that it costs too much to run the post office network at a time when government and other traditional business is falling away.” He said so-called “outreach” services – which the committee feared are underfunded – “are one way to establish a commercially viable and successful business for a SubPostmaster providing services across a number of communities within the funding available from the government.”

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Postal Operators – Fuel prices hitting profits

Posted by | Jul 24, 2008 | |

Higher fuel prices are having an impact on operating profit for all postal operators, and with many European countries already investing in alternative fuel sources, the U.S. Postal Service is now looking for ways to reduce it’s annual fuel bill, expected to increase by USD 600m this year.

The U.S. Postal Service has around 195,000 local delivery trucks and is already testing alternative transport powered by hydrogen, ethanol, lpg, and electricity.

French postal operator La Poste has a long-term plan to replace as much of its fleet as possible with electrically powered cars and is already using the battery-powered CleaNova, produced by Société de Véhicules Electriques (SVE), a joint venture between Dassault and Heuliez. Italian postal operator, Poste Italiane, has continued to replace many of its vehicles with gas-powered versions and has carried out several trials on alternative fuel vehicles, with special interest on serial-hybrid vans.

Royal mail aims to reduce its fleet fossil fuel usage by 14 pct by 2010 and has already bought Smith Edison and Newton higher function delivery vehicles which have a top speed of up to 50mph and can cover up to 150 miles on one battery charge. Royal Mail recently launched a company wide awareness programme to help its 180,000 people switch to greener driving, whether for social or work driving. And almost 1,000 Royal Mail drivers have received in-depth classroom training to help them adopt more environmentally-friendly motoring practices with plans to train a further 2,000 in the coming months.

With petrol and diesel prices expected to stay high this year, alternative fuels are likely to play a greater part in the selection of replacement vehicles for most postal operators.

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Royal Mail bosses under pressure for closing profitable branches (UK)

Posted by | Jul 24, 2008 | |

MPs warn in a new report that post offices in pubs and shops could be at risk because of inadequate funding and call for more transparency in the way Royal Mail treats its public subsidy.
Ministers have told Royal Mail to close 2,500 out of 14,000 branches in a bid to cut the network’s annual subsidy by GBP 40million to GBP 150million a year and stem losses running at GBP 4million a week.
However, Paula Vennells, Post Office Limited’s branch network director, told MPs on the Business and Enterprise committee that some of the condemned branches were making money.
She disclosed that 10 profitable branches will be closed during the 18 month-long Network Change Programme – or just over one every six weeks.
The committee’s chairman Peter Luff, who is publishing the report into the financial viability of the post office network, said it “made no sense” to allow profitable post offices to close.
The committee calls on the National Audit Office to investigate the financial arrangements for so-called ‘outreach’ services which Royal Mail is setting up when it has to close branches.
They call for close examination of the relationship between Post Office and its parent company Royal Mail Group after finding that money provided by Royal Mail was not enough for the Post Office to run its services.
The MPs also said Royal Mail should provide “clear information” on what services Royal Mail expects to be provided, how it works out what to pay for them, and how much they actually cost to deliver.
They questioned whether Royal Mail was using the Post Office to “cross-subsidise” some of its mail services. Last year the network received GBP 358 million for providing mail services to Royal Mail.

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