WarehousingIreland.ie – An Post drives major advances in its operations with Zetes’ POD solution

An Post drives major advances in its operations with Zetes’ POD solution

May 20, 2017 Warehousing Ireland Logistics, Materials Handling, News Comments Off on An Post drives major advances in its operations with Zetes’ POD solution

An Post, Ireland’s national postal operator, is further enhancing its electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) offering, by upgrading its existing mobility solution to ZetesChronos. The software, which offers additional functionality, provides better customer interaction and more streamlined management of inbound shipments and will provide An Post with new capabilities to add apps and functionality as their business evolves. Powered by the MCL™ Mobility Platform, An Post can now easily add new services and products to their apps, enabling it to react quickly to market or customer changes. An Post will also have the ability to centrally run, deploy and manage applications, without the need for costly IT infrastructure or to make alterations to its underlying software.

Next generation Proof of Delivery

In response to a growing and more competitive e-commerce landscape, An Post wants to offer its 1.7 million customers a more comprehensive range of services and delivery options. In addition, the handling of inbound shipments coming from other companies will be optimised with a new automated receipting system. This will significantly streamline the process and optimise the collaboration between An Post and their current and future customers.

Centrally managed PoD apps

ZetesChronos will run on the current Honeywell devices. Using the MCL™ Mobility Platform, a cloud-based Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP), An Post will be able to run, deploy and manage its PoD apps centrally without costly IT infrastructure. Besides, the platform being hardware and OS agnostic, An Post won’t have to upgrade its current pool of mobile terminals, making its PoD solution fully future-proof. Additional benefits are:

Agile development allowing to add new features quickly to optimise product and service offering
In-built analytics to have full visibility on the productivity of postal operatives and pool of mobile devices
“Zetes offered us a highly agile solution, which meant that we didn’t need to upgrade our current devices,” says Liam O’Sullivan, Director of Mails Operations at An Post. “This ensured that we were able to maximise our original IT investment. With around 4,600 postmen in the field, being able to centrally manage and deploy our applications from a single platform is also a true game changer; saving us valuable time and resource.”

Fully managed services

Zetes will continue to provide complete managed services to An Post. This includes end-user support, next day exchange and maintenance of the devices, Remote Device Management, Application Support and IT Service Management, as well as on-site preventative maintenance visits to ensure every device is kept operational.

Long standing collaboration

An Post has been working with Zetes for over 15 years to streamline its supply chain processes. Two solutions of Zetes’ Collaborative Supply Chain Suite have already been successfully implemented. The ZetesOlympus traceability solution runs in An Post’s sortation centres to track all items, which can include 2.5 million items of mail each week, from the moment they enter the An Post network through to customer signature capture. In addition, An Post uses the ZetesAres field mobility solution – also powered by the MCL™ Mobility Platform – to enable real-time data-capture and visibility for their 70 inspectors investigating unpaid TV licence fees on behalf of the Irish government.

Alain Wirtz, CEO of Zetes adds: “As with many of the postal companies we collaborate with, An Post is continually looking for new ways to offer competitive services. We are proud that it continues to see us as a trusted partner and allows us to help future-proof its business.”