Another component is Hawk, a module that provides application monitoring and management.ĭoran said the Tibco platform was chosen because of its ability to scale. Other components of the Tibco suite used by Royal Mail are Business Event, which is used to implement business rules such as duplicate scan checking, and ActiveSpace, a data cache to hold live parcel data. The module Business Works is used to provide the external-facing services, including consumer pre-advice and mail events, plus ‘track and trace’ enquiries, while the Enterprise Message Service system is used as messaging middleware to simplify and accelerate the integration and management of data distribution. This prompted the decision to introduce a new event management suite supplied by Tibco to support the parcel delivery operation. Although the postal system already had tracking capabilities, the old platform could not meet the growing demand. This is essential in order to meet the need to track parcels. The PDA project is linked to the replacement of the legacy system supporting Royal Mail’s parcel operation. Improving the parcel business infrastructure That is because the postal service has calculated that in its busiest period, it would expect the traffic through the PDA estate to be able to handle 4.5 million transactions in the peak hour. This year will be crucial in terms of getting the new PDAs rolled out at scale, she adds. “ was a pretty big win for us last year and we feel really good about it,” says Doran. Another trial stage, this time on deliveries on the road, is now being carried out before the actual roll-out, due to complete in November 2016. The programme took place throughout 2015, with the latest phase going live at the end of January 2016, following pilots in mail centres. The PDA trial was a pretty big win for us last year and we feel really good about it “We also wanted to be able to vary the devices, as well as the operating system we ran on them so we wouldn’t get locked in,” says Doran. Zebra Technologies was picked to supply the equipment. The second element of the PDA procurement exercise was the devices themselves, which would need to be toughened to withstand harsh working conditions. The first was a managed service for its 76,000 devices, awarded to BT and already in place. Since then, it has gone to market for two elements. Replace its PDAsĪbout a year ago, Royal Mail started a project to replace its PDAs. Over the past few months, the main projects in that space have revolved around the upgrade of the Postal Digital Assistant (PDA) estate and the replacement of the parcels platform. We are all pretty much flat out all the time.”ĭelivering technology projects that support Royal Mail’s investment in its parcel business is imperative for the IT team. “We are in a very, very busy and changing world, but we made some pretty nice progress during the year. “And we have to do a lot very quickly because there was a period of time when was under-invested, so there is catching up to be done. “Royal Mail as a business is transforming itself, and technology is a key enabler of that transformation,” Doran tells Computer Weekly. This level of activity calls for increased investment in its online presence, more customer engagement and ways of making life easier for users, says Doran.ĭriving automation across the postal delivery machine also requires several interdependent and complex IT projects and programmes that must be completed in the right order. The postal service also recorded 4.6 million unique online visits each day – a rise of about 30% from the year before. In December last year, Royal Mail delivered 6% more parcels than in December 2014, and saw an 11% rise in the number of European packages despite fierce competition from online rivals such as Amazon.
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