Australia Post Parcels Division had their first foray into the use of mobile technology several years ago. The Parcels Division developed a tracking system that was deployed on 2,500 devices nationwide “…we developed a system internally with limited experience in developing track and trace systems,” said Brendan Boyd, Manager - Network Distribution and Transport. This initial move into the world of mobile technology proved to be a satisfactory experience, however, after 4 years the system had met its limitations in terms of future development and subsequently needed to be replaced.

Australia Post required a solution that was flexible and scaleable and would enable it to achieve its growth targets in the business to business market. “The solution had to have the capability to grow with our business as we increased our revenue stream into both these new markets, and our existing markets,” said Boyd. These requirements led Australia Post to work with mobile solutions specialist Blackbay to develop its new platform. “We required a complete solution that would lift us from a batch up-load information system to real-time based information,” said Boyd. “The solution also had to provide a capability for existing hardware to migrate from the old platform to ensure that their useful life was realised.”

With over 10.3 million delivery points and increasing customer requirements, Australia Post faced a challenging logistics situation. “Our costs were escalating as delivery volumes were increasing by 20% per annum and we have didn’t have enough visibility of where savings could be made,” said Boyd.

There were some interesting challenges involved in developing the solution. One of the most important was ensuring that the entire Australia Post team was in support of the solution. As Brendan explained, providing evidence of the potential of the system was critical. “We ran a proof of concept which proved to be an important exercise; this provided us with enough leverage to build confidence in the organisation that this was the way to move forward. It was a faster to market approach than we had previously experienced, and it has set us up in providing a platform for our future mobility requirements within Australia Post,” said Boyd.

It was also essential to identify the potential growth of the solution and the effect that this would have on integration into other parts of Australia Post. “We had to look at how this would impact our product in terms of improving on our current customer experience and winning new customers, particularly as this was the first time Australia Post had introduced a hosted platform,” said Boyd.

The solution involved several components; the Blackbay mobile logistics product, Delivery Connect and the Blackbay middleware component integrated into the various Australia Post systems.

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