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K. Ananthan

A delivery man from Speedmail holds a sign-on-glass PDA with facility for online transmission of proof of delivery.

L.N. Revathy

We’ve all been through this. The courier delivery man rings the bell to hand over a cover/parcel. To confirm delivery, he asks you to sign on the acknowledgement slip and the delivery sheet.

You borrow his pen, take a couple of seconds to scan the list for your name and then sign on the sheet.

Decades have gone by but this practice has not seen much change. The courier business, however, has grown volume-wise, and across geographies.

Speed is essential since packages/covers have to be collected and delivered as quickly as possible. And with the mushrooming growth of players in this space, the business has become highly competitive.

Is there any way to speed up the process, and take the tedium out too, for the customer?

Visualise this: The courier delivery man gives you the cover/parcel and holds out a hand-held device for your signature on the small touch screen (which can be done using any pen) and saves it electronically.

Cool, isn’t it? Well, that’s how we too felt when the uniform-clad courier clerk from Speed Mail Courier Service walked into our office to deliver covers.

The courier company has completed a pilot run of this service in Tamil Nadu.

As of today, only multi-national companies that go for bulk bookings are enjoying this service. Retail booking launch is slated for August.

The company has, over the past year, switched over to this e-acknowledgement instead of on paper by giving each of its delivery staff a hand-held device, imported from China.

The signatures are saved on the electronic device. The timer helps track the date and time of delivery without manual intervention.

After completing the day’s schedule, the data stored in the device is uploaded onto the company’s central server.

“The instant and smooth exchange of data for further processing is crucial when it comes to smooth handling of business processing. Customers are demanding better service and these include instant delivery updates and online tracking,” says the company’s Managing Partner, Muthukumar.

Following the introduction of this hand-held device, the courier company has managed to avoid repetition of jobs (writing/copying details from one file/register, among others) thereby saving as much as 16 hours a day, go paperless and ensure accuracy of data and time.

The base unit, which forms the root of the product family, has many in-built features. Speed Mail has preferred to give only the data option to the delivery staff.

The device, however, is capable of supporting tracking delivery online (when the delivery staff are on the move), can be used as a mobile phone or pocket computer by activating the different features.

It is flexible in terms of interfaces and can be equipped with various transponder readers or scanners.

The data is downloaded onto the PDA from the central system in a certain order. The streamlined option ensures that the delivery clerk would not have to search the address each time and the sequential order in which it is stored helps the clerk complete his job much faster.

The company has found that against the average daily delivery of 300- 350 covers/parcels, a clerk manages to deliver around 700 now.

Speed Mail, according to Muthukumar, delivers about 30 lakh packets every month.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : Information Technology | Supply Chain Management

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