Tag: UK

International Freight Industry to shift from air transport to sea and rail

Posted by | Jul 15, 2008 | |

Australia Post’s Managing Director, Graeme John, foresees cutbacks on flights and a shift towards sea and rail deliveries with regard to the annual meeting of the Kahala Posts Group last week.

John said that growth in international freight from consumer goods such as electronics had been managed on a “just in time” basis, with air delivery preferred to other means of transport due to its speed advantage. But that approach was no longer viable as global warming would have an enormous influence on the postal industry worldwide increasing the pressure to shift towards less environmentally-damaging modes of delivery.

The Kahala Posts Group (KPG) which is the alliance of nine national postal administrations in Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, France and Britain, was founded five years ago and named after a resort the members stayed at during their founding meeting in Hawaii. The postal operators have since launched an upgraded, guarantee-based international service between their respective countries and territories.

Therefore, Kahala Group focused instead on reliability of delivery. But to keep the reliability of the service, the Kahala members had to upgrade their tracking systems. It also required the creation of a “delivery calculator”, a database of eight billion postcodes that allows a customer to walk into any postal outlet, list their destination and be told a precise time window during which a parcel would be delivered, Brisbane Times further reported.

While the private couriers already offered that service and faster delivery, the Kahala members undercut their prices by 40 pct to 50 pct to stay competitive in price.

John further said that a worsening economic environment could prompt a trend to slower “deferred” delivery services.

The Kahala partnership is also moving beyond postage, with Australia Post, China Post and the US Postal Service preparing to launch a group-owned money transfer service to compete against Western Union, Brisbane Times added.

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Kuehne + Nagel opens frozen foods distribution centre in northern Italy Milan

Posted by | Jul 15, 2008 | |

Kuehne + Nagel has taken up operations at its new state-of-the-art warehouse at Casorate Primo (PV). The new multi-user facility is dedicated to the storage and distribution of frozen foods and will initially serve the 800 points of sale of Italian retailers Eurospin, PAM and Billa across northern Italy.

Constructed on a 45.000 sqm plot, the site is strategically located southwest of the Milan ring road close to the A7 motorway; an ideal gateway to serve the whole northern part of the Italian peninsula. The new distribution centre provides over 12,000 sqm of warehouse space and a temperature-controlled (-28°C) storage volume of 140,000 cubic metres across two cells. In a next phase of construction warehouse space can be extended to 17,000 sqm. The facility allows for the outbound handling of up to 8 million cases a year.

These are distributed across northern Italy, including Tuscany, via Kuehne + Nagel’s dedicated road transport network. The building complies with the strictest security and environmental requirements. It is equipped with a grid-connected photovoltaic generator, and 8,000 sqm of solar panels have been installed on its roof. Additionally, it features the latest state-of-the-art warehouse technology (radio frequency and voice picking), thereby significantly enhancing operations in terms of ergonomics, a key factor in the frozen foods sector.

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EU postal operators failing to communicate

Posted by | Jul 14, 2008 | |

Swiss Post and Royal Mail have been praised for their regular news bulletins by Hellmail, the European postal industry news site.

Editor for Hellmail, Steve Lawson, said “Many Euro postal operators have been rather slow to market themselves and communicate in the wider context since Liberalisation began.” he said.

He said that some postal operators should be praised for their efforts. Swiss Post particularly, with a whole section devoted to media communications including an impressive image library. Royal Mail too has a dedicated press office with almost daily news.

“Oddly, Lithuania scores well in terms of news output, but France’s La Poste, Turkey, Slovakia and Slovenia fall far behind. Italy, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria rarely update their news, The Ukraine, Latvia and Luxembourg have no translation facility at all for news, and Romania stopped producing translated news altogether in 2007.”

Hellmail found that most web sites were reasonably easy to navigate except for Denmark & Greece which had a Flash into that was very difficult to get past. Swiss Post and Royal Mail scored the highest for news output, closely followed by DHL, Malta, and Russian Post.

“Clearly there is much room for improvement and we have emailed most of these operators asking them to look closer at the way they communicate. Obviously some European postal services are heavily tied into state ownership, and in some cases, political regimes, but even so, with Europe pushing for closer ties under postal liberalisation, some countries have simply failed to exploit the potential here. From our perspective, its so important that smaller European countries can be heard. We really do want to know what they’re about.” he said.

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New FedEx depot shows faith in region (UK)

Posted by | Jul 14, 2008 | |

FedEx has opened a new facility close to Exeter.

The new FedEx depot, at the Greendale Business Park, Woodbury Salterton, has the capacity to sort 500 packages per hour along a 70-metre conveyor system designed to quickly process parcels. And Trevor Hoyle, FedEx UK Managing Director, said: “This depot demonstrates our commitment to playing a central role in the future growth of the South West of England.

“Our investment in Exeter means faster and more flexible services for local businesses and ensures they can continue to benefit from connections with the global economy.”

The 17,000 sq ft facility was also specially adapted to allow vehicles to load from any of the 13 double-shutter doors at the front and side of the building — freeing warehouse space inside.

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