PostNL appoints external consultancy for process optimisation

Never in its history has the postal industry been more dynamic.  To survive and thrive, postal organisations have been compelled to completely re-think their processes.  Flexible automation to deal with fluctuating demand and peaks in productivity has become essential.  But even though most posts are now much more able to accommodate unstable demand, keeping pace with change and technological developments is still a challenge.

So how can a pro-active postal organisation manage its current business, anticipate new trends and keep tabs on what’s new?  The answer for PostNL, the Dutch postal operator, has been the appointment of Prime Competence.  This independent consultancy is now in place to provide dedicated support to ensure PostNL has all the strategic input it needs to best serve its customers and grow its business.

Prime Competence consultants are engaged to work with PostNL for an average of two days per week and in a short time frame have already completed several projects aimed at optimising processes.

The purpose of the first assignment was to determine the optimal location for specific codes on the mail piece and involved the development of a ‘white stroke detector’ for items that are unable to run on the company’s new, advanced sorting machines.  The best way to integrate large, pre-sorted shipments of magazines into e-sort sequence sorting has also been considered.

The team then applied its experience to improving the quality and effectiveness of video coding for mail without a valid post code.  How to decode these items at the remote data entry centres and to use fuzzy matching techniques in the database were part of this remit.

Prime Competence has also developed innovative software tools for maintaining and benchmarking the performance of sorting machine cameras and work is ongoing to evaluate the potential for process enhancement on the Culler Facer Canceller (CFC) machines.   Considerations include optical, fraud stamp and return mail detection.

These incremental improvements are helping to ensure PostNL is in the best shape possible, now and in preparation for the future.  Prime Competence continues to identify opportunities and apply its unbiased knowledge of the latest technology to provide the best solutions.  And, for PostNL, it is clearly a successful formula.

“With professional advice from Prime Competence on a daily basis we are continuously improving logistical processes and reducing erroneous deliveries to an absolute minimum,” confirmed PostNL’s Joop ten Dam.

Quelle: www.primevision.com