June/July 2008

The Isle of Man has served as an ideal proving ground for a multi-carrier online proof of delivery system

If you're despatching goods from the UK mainland to the Isle of Man, you don't normally send your own vehicles there to deliver them; you use a locally-based contractor. It's a simple matter of economics and convenience.

That's why local carriers have such a pivotal role in delivery on the island. They have to deal with a world in microcosm. But they also face challenges – particularly when it comes to integrating their systems with those of the numerous mainland carriers they work for.

Manx Independent Carriers, the island's largest distribution company, is a classic case in point. It works for of virtually all the major mainland parcel carriers, including FedEx, UPS, DPD, Citylink, Parcelnet and Amtrak. And now that all carriers are adopting advanced electronic proof of delivery gathering systems, Manx has had to find a way to accommodate their requirements and integrate with them all.

Director Michael Coleman elaborates. 'We're a carrier's carrier, delivering anything for anyone across the island,' he says. 'That makes us unique in the UK transport sector, and since we deliver for so many other carriers, it creates real challenges.'

He adds: 'With all the carriers running their own bespoke proof of delivery systems, adopting all of those systems was never going to be a practical option. Our existing paper-based POD system was working well, but we wanted to take a lead, and give our customers an advantage through real-time information on their Isle of Man deliveries.'

Fortunately, his company learned of a new system being rolled out by NetDespatch, a specialist in online consignment booking and management software. It is called PODXchange, and is described as something like a Web-based international 'databank'. POD information gathered in the field is uploaded to this resource, and the carriers who initiated the movement can access it from there.

The first operator to start using it was AJG Parcels of Inverness. Whilst mainland-based, AJG serves relatively remote areas of the country; so in much the same way as Max, it works for a variety of other carriers, doing their final deliveries for them. It therefore faced a similar requirement for a generic POD system that would integrate with theirs.

'We travelled to Inverness to see the first PODXchange implementation in action with AJG,' says Michael Coleman. 'It was immediately evident that this had real potential for the Isle of Man.'

Indeed, he felt that he had identified even greater potential than was being realised in Scotland. 'We felt we could develop the first true multi-service proof of delivery system.'

Manx drivers are now equipped with Symbol handheld terminals (nowadays a brand of Motorola), which incorporate a barcode scanner and a touch screen. When deliveries are made and signed for, details of the shipment held in the barcode can be transmitted live to the PODXchange Web portal via GPRS, along with the captured electronic signature.

Scanned data, POD information and the signatures themselves are all then transformed into the appropriate carrier format and made available to Manx's customers, including the UK parcel carriers.

The system has inbuilt intelligence that allows it to recognise carriers from the barcodes on the parcels, ensuring that each carrier only retrieves data on its own parcels.

'We see PODXchange as one of the biggest advances in delivery management,' Michael Coleman says. 'It will provide our mainland partners with instant PODs from the Isle of Man for the first time – boosting the appeal of their services.'

Manx Independent Carriers was formed 24 years ago, specialising in groupage, and today operates over 120 vehicles. It has depots in Douglas on the island, and at Skelmersdale in Lancashire.

Manx has seen a big growth in parcel deliveries in recent years, and now delivers up to 4,500 parcelsa night in peak periods. Internet shopping has become very popular across the island, and home deliveries now account for around 70 per cent of the parcel deliveries undertaken by Manx.

However, the company continues to offer a full range of transport services, and operates more than 100 trailers. Its services include pallet deliveries, tanker transport and temperature-controlled distribution of food and pharmaceuticals.

'The proof of delivery solution gives our customers live updates on anything we deliver, whether it's a parcel, a pallet, an item of plant or fresh food,' Coleman says.

Innovation continues at the company. It is implementing an advanced mobile solution supplied by Spirit Data Capture and a traffic management system from Haultech – both of which will be able to integrate with the mobile resources used by the POD system.

The Isle of Man has often been chosen as a testbed location for trialling new technology such as 3G mobile phones, fibre-optic cabling and advanced power generation and waste incineration. It's fitting, then, that this advanced POD system should see an early roll-out here. If history is anything to go by, it should appear increasingly on the mainland as well.