2008 SHOW REVIEW

The 12th annual POST-EXPO exhibition and conference, held on 30 September, 1 and 2 October 2008 at the ExCeL London exhibition and conference centre, was hailed as an enormous success by visitors and exhibitors alike. The show was attended by 4000 visitors from 85 countries, with representatives from as far afield as Bahrain, Australia, Hong Kong and Fiji.

POST-EXPO is widely regarded as the premier annual showcase for world postal technology and this year was no exception. With nearly 200 exhibitors on show, many visitors found it more than a day’s work to visit them all.

Here are just a handful of the highlights:

Vroom!

The Oxygen stand was very popular. The Italian company is a market leader in the development, production and distribution of light electric vehicles, the most famous of which are its post and cargo scooters. Oxygen’s products have been devised specifically for the delivery business and fleet market and are the result of years of collaboration and development with posts around Europe. Tommaso Stefani is the company’s marketing director: “Our scooters are perfect for this kind of application. They are different from other such vehicles: ours have not been developed for the consumer, then adjusted. These are conceived with features like low centre of gravity and lateral hand protections, plus they run on electricity to save money. This means no time spent at gas stations. Their maximum speed is 48pmh.” Stefani believes that a recent order from Swiss Post for 250 scooters is a vindication of Oxygen’s unique proposition: “That a post with such an excellent reputation for testing should order so many vehicles is excellent. Swiss Post will soon have the largest fleet of electric scooters in Europe.” Oxygen has four key delivery messages: strength (stronger, safer and more reliable), purity (100% electric with no emissions), profitability (save money on maintenance and energy) and personalisation (by customising the scooter you can deliver not only the mail but also the brand of your company).

Convenience

ByBox – the fastest-growing technology company in the UK, according to Deloitte’s Fast50 – was back at POST-EXPO for its seventh year. The firm is one of the leading suppliers of electronic box solutions to the European postal market, and its basic principle is to consolidate failed deliveries in one location so customers can pick them up at their convenience. Currently used by private customers, many of whom are maintenance engineers who need spare parts for urgent jobs, the latest ByBox lockers have a built-in biometric application. “Last year we had a signature,” said senior project manager Ketty Rosine. “This year we have introduced a sensor that reads your palm. You simply place your hand in the space and your locker pings open.” As an alternative, ByBox has developed mobile phone recognition technology: once your phone is registered, a sensor will read the phone’s unique ID and once again the locker will open. ByBox also used POST-EXPO to launch its Green box: solar panelling on the roof of the module are designed to make it self-sufficient. “It doesn’t need to be plugged in anywhere,” said Rosine. “During the day the box only gets used for four hours. The sensor picks up when someone is there and wakes up. The rest of the time it sleeps and conserves energy.”

Energy Efficiency

As an expert in the field of automated material handling, FKI Logistex used POST-EXPO to underline its knack of engineering products that combine cutting-edge technology with high levels of energy efficiency. The Logistex NB200 narrow-belt driven roller conveyor was a case in point. Product manager Jon Warrilow: “It only runs when it has to. The split second a box has gone, the roller stops. In a conventional system each zone would run for 10 seconds after a box has gone. Normally if you have got six boxes in a minute your rollers are on all the time. If six boxes came in a minute on this system each roller would run for no more than six seconds. This means massive savings.” Warrilow also introduced FKI’s brand-new tilt-tray sorter, the LS-4000E. “For years everyone has been using linear motors for driving. These are notoriously inefficient. We have developed a synchronous linear motor. The energy savings are huge: a typical sorter with a traditional linear motor would consume about 30kW. The LS-4000E consumes 7.5. This is a massive change in technology.”

World First

Prime Vision is a joint venture between TNT Post and Dutch state-owned research organisation TNO. Its 40 employees are on a mission to improve optical character recognition (OCR) technology for the parcel and post market. Eddy Thans is Prime Vision’s CEO: “Based on the work we are doing, read rates for parcels are increasing day by day, and we are now approaching read rates that are comparable with normal mail streams, meaning fewer mis-sorts. With respect to video coding, people don’t want a centralised solution any more, where there is a sorting centre and people are keying. We are looking at the management of available resources across the complete operation rather than each sorting centre individually.” Through the use of smart and secure networking technologies, Prime Vision is linking sorting centres nationally and internationally so that video coding and other resources can be managed as a single pool that can respond to peaks in throughput at each site as a team. A new strand that is to be deployed through TNT next month is a web-based version enabling postal employees to work from their home office and, with only a browser, complete video coding for the mail sorting centres. “That is really new,” says Thans. “We will be the first to implement this in the world.”



Revolutionary

Korea Post, in collaboration with Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), has devised an application of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, making Korea only the second country in the world, after Denmark, to adopt RFID for postal work. Currently the tracking process relies on barcodes, but the use of RFID tags will greatly improve the speed and volume of deliveries and reduce labour costs by reducing manual piece handling. As ETRI engineer Eunhye Kim explained, “RFID tags are attached to the pallets, which then send radio signals to reading devices installed at the gates of mail centres. The main purpose of this system is to provide more accurate tracking information of the containers and the mail contained within them. The role of barcodes isn’t completely eliminated, however, as they will still be used to relay the information of each postal item to the electronic chips on the pallets.” By the end of the year Korea Post plans to license a company to install the RFID tags and readers at the country’s 25 mail centres nationwide, a process that is expected to be completed around August next year. According to the Universal Postal Union, RFID chips have been tested by postal services in about 50 countries.

Capabilities

Few POST-EXPO visitors would have failed to notice the eye-catching demonstration of the new sorting machine by Solystic, one of the world’s leading suppliers of postal automation. The MARS C4 enables simultaneous sequencing of letters with a large range of flat mailpieces, resulting in a decrease of the merging operations; it reduces the volume of items that have to be manually inserted into the sequenced letter stack by processing not only standard letters but an expanded range of C4 envelopes – and all while processing 32,000 letters per hour. New or upgraded, the MARS C4 machine has the same footprint as a standard MARS and all the options proposed on the standard MARS can be installed on a MARS C4 machine. As Vicki Spira, vice-president of automation and European operations, commented, “This is an economic way for postal agencies to automate larger ranges and sizes of mail. Our machine is unique.”

Hot Property

Those who entered the Motorola stand may well have seen the company’s latest offering: the MC75 Worldwide Enterprise Digital Assistant. The features on this lightweight mobile computer include push-to-talk, integrated GPS with superior sensitivity and tracking capabilities, 1D and 2D barcode scanning, a high-resolution 2 megapixel autofocus colour camera, 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN (WLAN), Bluetooth and IrDA connectivity. David Picton is head of parcel and post for Motorola: “If you are delivering an item and damage has occurred, you will need to take a picture. You can also use the scanner for barcoding, the GPS device for navigation, Bluetooth if you want to add an accessory – it will talk to a wireless network inside a store or a warehouse – and if you insert a SIM card you have a wide-area radio. This product is ideal from a delivery situation where you need a signature onscreen, right through to a mailroom-type environment. It joins the whole thing together.”

Half the Size…

Datalogic of Italy used POST-EXPO to launch the NVS9000, its revolutionary new camera system. Designed to dramatically improve the overall system throughput in large couriers and postal distribution centres, it also provides the simplest integration, the easiest installation and highest industrial reliability with very low investment. NVS9000 features high-quality image detection with extended depth of field on large conveyors. The outstanding dynamic performance – up to 4.8 m/s – combined with a new fast autofocus system, guarantees excellent reading capabilities on high-speed conveyors with very small gaps between parcels. Stefano Selvatici, sales and marketing manager with Datalogic, explained that the product “can be easily mechanically integrated thanks to its patented pulsed lighting feature that dramatically reduces the overall system dimensions by about 50%. We believe this is the best product in the market for parcel sorting.” The system is ready to be integrated with OCR and video coding software to improve overall reading capability; maintenance is simple and fast due to a plug-and-play concept introduced for every replaceable part.

Reactions from POST-EXPO 2008 - VISITORS

“What an excellent show! I met the kind of people and saw the kind of solutions I was after. I will certainly be there next time.”
Stefan Sommer, director of parcels, Post Danmark A/S

“This was my first time at POST-EXPO and it was a great experience being able to mingle with people from within the industry. I was looking for customer facing ideas and solutions that I could use to assist our customers, as well as operational improvements and efficiencies that can maximise the value New Zealand Post can provide. As a result of POST-EXPO 2008 I will be able to progress both of my objectives. I will certainly look to be putting POST-EXPO 2009 on my itinerary.”
Jared Handcock, client solutions manager, New Zealand Post

“Do you meet the right kind of people? Absolutely. We go every year.”
David Teasdale, head of engineering, DHL Express UK Ltd

“POST-EXPO 2008 was very useful in that while I was there I managed to see several people that I had been trying to track down for a while and got quite a bit of work done with them, one of whom was one of our major suppliers. I certainly plan on going again.”
Robin Birch, principle engineer, Royal Mail, UK

“It was a very good event. I learnt a lot about all the current trends and developments in the postal industry. It was also excellent for networking possibilities. I would certainly recommend it.”
Daniel Meyer, project manager, DPWN Inhouse Consulting, Germany

“My main area of interest was letter flat sorting machines because we are purchasing new machines here in Finland. I got all the information I needed, plus new contacts of course. My experience was very positive. I am looking forward to attending next year.”
Jari Matikainen, development manager, Itella Corporation, Finland

“POST-EXPO is a great opportunity because everyone is here. To be able to meet with people you know but wouldn’t normally travel to see, and discuss all you need to over two days, is ideal.”
Tijs Steenge, senior consultant, TNT Post

 

Reactions from POST-EXPO 2008 - EXHIBITORS

“This is the second year we have done this show. Last year was pretty good – but this year was even better! We had a very good event and will be there next year. I think we may well attend the event in Hong Kong (POST-EXPO Asia 2009), too.”
Eric Thomas, vice-president business development, Esker SA

“It was extremely useful for us this year, particularly from a networking perspective. It’s a perfect opportunity to meet and talk with the whole industry.”
Richard Hagen, director of sales, Prime Vision, Netherlands

“For us it was a good show – as it always is. We were able to meet with plenty of interesting people and prospects. Along with potential customers from Europe we also spoke with many companies from Asia. We had plenty of visitors at our booth and have already booked up for next year.”
Martin Voss, strategic industry manager, SICK AG, Germany

“We were pleased by the quality of international business opportunities that presented themselves, and ExCeL in London was the best venue yet for POST-EXPO. The location and resources were excellent. We had two stands this year and that meant excellent exposure for us.”
Dennis Gilham, director of corporate partnerships, Neopost, UK

“I think it was a very good event. Appearing at a show like this and showing your products in action is much better than writing something in a newspaper. Many postal operators were interested in our new technology and we came away happy.”
Francois Gillet, director of business development, Solystic, France

“We always enjoy participating in POST-EXPO and this year was no exception. It’s an excellent place to network because everyone is there. All in all a very good event.”
Peter Elmvang, marketing manager, FKI Logistex, Denmark