Oct/Nov 2008

The scale of Royal Mail's new mobility solution is impressive. We catch up with some of the detail

In one of the biggest roll-outs of a mobility solution this year, Royal Mail has implemented a business-wide real-time proof of delivery and signature capture system across the UK.

To give some measure of the scale of the project, it involves the deployment of 25,000 ruggedised handheld terminals. The system will be used for the majority of the organisation's tracked products, including Special Delivery and 'Recorded Signed For' services.

In a nutshell, the system will enable Royal Mail to capture recipients' signatures on the handheld devices, and transmit them back to base via GPRS wireless technology. Royal Mail says customers will be able to confirm delivery and view the signature within fifteen minutes.

 

The system will also allow Royal Mail capture event and time stamping throughout the delivery process, providing visibility to its operational departments and customers in real time.

Several major suppliers have been involved with the project. It has been led by CSC, an IT services company that already manages Royal Mail's desktop computers, servers, mainframes and IT processes.

CSC in turn has been working with BlackBay, a specialist in mobile solutions for postal and logistics applications. The system is built round BlackBay's Delivery Connect software.

The CN3 handheld terminals are being provided by Intermec, and among other things they will be able to run ALK's CoPilot Live Professional satellite navigation system to guide drivers to each call. This is said to be the biggest single implementation of CoPilot Live to date.

According to Robin Dargue, the chief information officer at Royal Mail Group, the system 'will help Royal Mail continue to meet the needs of customers and improve its competitive edge in a market where competition is increasing.'

Central to the system is Blackbay's scalable mobile solution, which will enable Royal Mail customers to view the status of their deliveries in real time via Royal Mail's Web portal. The system is also intended to help Royal Mail to improve its efficiency and reduce operational costs by replacing its current paper-based tracking system with a real-time mobile solution.

Dargue says the Blackbay team 'added significant value to this project with the depth of their experience in the postal industry.' Some of this experience was no doubt gained during Blackbay's implementation of mobile workforce solutions at Royal Mail's sister-business, Parcelforce Worldwide. There are said to be 7,000 users of the Blackbay Delivery Connect software within the Royal Mail Group as a whole.

The Intermec terminals were chosen following a series of trials conducted across the UK late last year. These were intended to test the suitability, compatibility and benefits of what Royal Mail calls 'postal digital assistants' for both customers and staff. 'The feedback from both groups was extremely positive, especially when it came to ease of use of the CN3,' Dargue says.

The CN3 is one of the new generation of small, advanced rugged handheld computers, and runs the Windows Mobile operating system. Among features, it supports direct push wireless email, giving the Royal Mail users real-time connectivity with the organisation's corporate network. Users will also be able to scan one- and two-dimensional barcodes.

Satnav has been built into the core of the system. ALK says its CoPilot Live Professional has been integrated fully with the on-board job despatch, management and proof of delivery features of Blackbay's Delivery Connect system.

Postcode or address data for consignments is passed automatically to CoPilot, and a simple 'Navigate' button on the device launches the satnav application. The driver is then provided with route mapping, turn directions and full voice guidance to the next destination.

On arrival at the delivery point, the screen reverts to Delivery Connect application for signature capture and proof of delivery.

The organisation points out that the navigation element of the system will be of particular value for new, temporary or relief drivers who may be unfamiliar with the delivery area where they're working.

A key requirement for Royal Mail's proof of delivery solution was scalability. 'After working with Blackbay previously, we were confident that the Delivery Connect solution would be able to meet that requirement,' says Guy Hains, President of CSC's European operations.

Integration seems to have been a watchword of the project throughout. As Intermec's president and chief executive Patrick J. Byrne comments: 'Our relationship with Blackbay has helped us to develop our role as a leading hardware provider to the postal sector.'