10.00 - 12.00
Planning and performance
Day 1 Tuesday 30 September

Digital postal code maps as a basis for integrated logistics, sales and marketing operations
GfK GeoMarketing GmbH, Gerrit Schreiber, geomarketing consultant
Geographic location is the connecting link between any company’s data. DISTRICT 10 – a geomarketing software developed by GfK GeoMarketing – analyses and visualises this data using digital maps. Information such as customer locations, delivery volumes, household numbers and regional purchasing power levels can be easily integrated and visually represented. Using DISTRICT 10 and digitial postal code maps, we will demonstrate how to outline, plan and optimise a sales territory network for logistic, sales and marketing purposes.

Managing indoor and outdoor work assignments
GIRO Inc, Serge Galarneau, director
Mail volume fluctuations affect sorting and preparation times from one day to the next. They also affect how employees can best be utilised from day to day. To maintain employee efficiency, some postal organisations manage indoor and outdoor work assignments as separate blocks carried out by different teams, while others replace indoor activities – such as sorting mail – with outdoor activities performed by letter carriers, or vice versa. Route planning and work assignment software can support whichever approach is used, and offers postal managers efficient decision-making tools. This session will provide an overview of software functionalities available to ensure the most efficient use of resources.

Vendors say ‘software as a service’ will cut costs and increase efficiency. Does that sound too good to be true?
NetDespatch Ltd, Becky Clark, chief executive
The session will discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing hardware and software solutions before moving on to look at the various types of application available: salesforce.com, netsuite.com and netdespatch.com. These applications have become important (and accepted) tools in the express/home delivery and postal marketplaces, because they suit seasonal peaks and troughs, the need for business agility, and also the requirement for cost savings and efficiency in an increasingly fragmented global delivery system. The session will conclude with examples of how a ‘virtual delivery system’ based on a central platform can create cost efficiency and increased visibility from retailer to the letterbox.

Technology and win-win: linking mailers and posts electronically
WorkTrace, Leonid Bashevkin, technical director, Margaret Quinn, business development director
Technology is no longer a support function in the postal market: it is a core function and a key differentiating factor. How can you maintain high service quality as mail volumes soar, while keeping customers happy and costs down? Technology has a vital role to play. The key requirements for such enabling technology solutions and architecture will be discussed. From concept to reality, we will look at the WorkTrace solution in practice and the very real benefits to be gained. The added value from the perspective of both the post and the customer makes this a clear win-win option.

Mobile intelligence: Optimized control and asset management tools
AH Computer Consulting, Heba Elaraby, managing director
The deployment of hundreds of thousands of handheld scanners to more than 38,000 locations posed a huge asset management challenge to the United States Postal Service. AH Computer Consulting, Inc.’s delivery in 2007 of an optimized Deployment Management and Asset Management System presented opportunities to increase control and management of the assets. And with its focus on granular tracking of packages for Egypt Post, AHCC is poised to combine asset management, pinpoint package tracking, and intelligent scheduling and rerouting for complete business automation.

An RFID performance case
Neopost, Alain Ferard, director logistics systems
Two worldwide leaders in their activities (logistic and retail business) have agreed to launch one of the larger projects applying RFID technology. After having demonstrated the feasibility and set-up the pilot, this project brings advantages for the workers on the field, as well as expected savings and benefits.

14.00 - 16.00
Sorting and moving of parcels
Day 1 Tuesday 30 September

Optimising express parcel depot conveyance to achieve operational excellence
Intralox L.L.C. Europe, Christoph Lemm, sales application engineer
In environments where parcels must move through multiple processes of tracking, scanning and sorting, installing a mechanically simple conveying solution to automate manual processes promises increased productivity and efficiency at a low cost. Intralox ARB™ technology is an innovative conveying technology that enables automated parcel handling without the technical complexity and expense of the current alternatives. ARB-equipped conveyors intelligently move items to the left, right or centre of the conveyor belt, or change the speed of an item, all without complex mechanical and electrical controls. In this session, Intralox will analyse the different stages of parcel handling inside medium-size depots, identify common problems and provide insights into how to solve these issues, thereby increasing efficiency and performance.

Greener and more energy-efficient post and parcel sortation
FKI Logistex, Uffe Lykkegaard, head of product development
Working towards a greener future, FKI Logistex has developed a new sortation system that enables greater efficiency with lower energy consumption. High-speed post and parcel sortation systems can become greener as the amount of power used to drive the motors in the sortation systems is reduced through a significant electrical efficiency boost. Starting from the first field project featuring this new technology, the presentation highlights the benefits of this energy-efficient system together with examples on how product life-cycle costs can be reduced.

Advantages of centralised OCR processing in a multi-sorter parcel center
Planet Intelligent Systems Inc, Johannes Meerjanssen, CEO
Traditionally, parcel OCR systems are connected to one designated camera tunnel. Advances in image and data transfer technologies allow the relocation of OCR systems away from the camera tunnel into a local server room or remote processing centre. This opens the door to multiple benefits, such as reduced hardware requirements stemming from resource pooling; improved serviceability; less hardware wear and tear in a controlled, suitable environment; improved system availability rates, etc. The presentation will introduce a central OCR system architecture and the associated benefits.

How to reduce cost and guarantee highest possible uptime of autoID equipment
Accu-Sort Systems Inc, Maik Fuchs, business development manager
The presentation will describe the current challenges faced by CEP companies, and introduce solutions in the areas of product reliability and ease of use; advanced monitoring solutions; and services, lock-out future trends.

Taking error out of sortation
Motorola Inc, Jerry McNerney, senior director
Today’s parcel and post industry does not have the luxury of doing things twice. The presentation will provide a best-practice discussion on how leading parcel and post providers are leveraging an ecosystem of enterprise mobility technologies including mobile computers, wireless infrastructure and advanced data capture, (barcodes and RFID) to improve their sorting operations and ensure that the right parcels and letters are going in the right direction.

Streamlining your sorting process
Vanderlande Industries, Marc van Neerrijnen, senior systems engineer express parcel
Improving your daily sorting process will reduce costs and improve efficiency. This presentation will discuss innovative tools, new products and practical examples that will help you meet today’s market demands.

10.00 - 12.00
Automation and handling of mail
Day 2 Wednesday 1 October

Revenue protection – let technology stem the flow of revenue leakage
Bowe Bell+Howell Company, Wilfried Hahn, managing director
Revenue protection is becoming a major focus for all postal operators (national and private). The use of BBH technology has helped address this issue over the last few years.

How to optimise letter and flat mail sequencing
Solystic SAS, Francois Gillet, marketing and business development director
Automated letter sequencing has become a common practice for many postal operators. Most of them ask their postmen to have a single satchel, in which flats and letters are mixed up. The insertion process to put each flat mail piece into the stack of sequenced letters is long and costly. This session will introduce a Solystic machine which is able to sequence mail pieces up to C4 size at a throughput over 35,000 pieces per hour. The next challenge is to tackle the sorting machines and ancillary equipment that are currently being used in the sorting centres. Solystic will present its latest recommendations in this area.

Integrated industrial mail processing: Working together with mailing factories to optimise the value of end-to-end delivery
Neopost, Dennis Gilham, director of corporate partnerships
A major European postal operator has executed a strategic program stimulating industrial mailers to integrate the production mail processes with the mailstream, bringing new benefits and cost savings. This presentation will demonstrate the success of the new program and system solutions.

Optimised mail sorting strategies and value-added services through an innovative data-matching technology
Syslore Ltd, Jörkki Hyvönen, chief scientist
Cost discipline is more critical than ever for postal operators as several countries have reported decreasing addressed mail and letter volumes and increased private competition due to upcoming full market deregulation in Europe. At the same time, electronic substitution and hybrid mail volumes are emerging. This situation increases the importance of sorting process optimisation and utilisation of sequence sorting schemes. It also creates new cost saving opportunities and business possibilities for innovative services based on postal receiver and address data assets and information logistics. Syslore has developed an innovative address and receiver data matching solution, mCorrection, which optimises and enhances mail sorting productivity and creates innovative services around postal address and receiver data assets.

Turning envelope data into actionable information
Parascipt, John Buck, vice-president
Today’s postal operators and mail processors need to be able to extract even more data from the envelope and turn it into actionable information. For example, significant savings can be achieved if automated image analysis and recognition technology is able to analyse addresses and reliably conclude that they are incomplete. As a result, the volume of mail sent for manual keying can be dramatically reduced. Another capability that promises a significant improvement in mail sorting is automatic reading of addressee names, as it increases the finest depth of sorting and enables mail redirection service. This presentation will highlight how posts of various sizes can benefit from technological innovations to process more information from mail pieces in one single step, instantaneously.

Optimisation of operations and data transformation into business intelligence through web-based analysis tools
CODE Plus Inc, Jinan AbouShakra, president & CEO
With automation projects having reached maturity and external cost factors depressing operational margins, postal operators need to increase efficiencies within the existing infrastructure throughout all levels of the organisation. CODEplus has developed web-based analysis tools that utilise existing operational data stores to identify, visualise and transform this data into business intelligence, such as automation inefficiencies, and enforce corrective responses through the use of area of responsibility-specific alerts.

14.00 - 16.00
Retail and customer solutions
Day 2 Wednesday 1 October

Self service: how to move the customer from queue to kiosk – successfully!
aCon A/S, Jesper Andreassen, programme manager
Developing a kiosk solution is a challenge because the task is to transfer knowledge from counter staff to kiosk. But a more important issue is to make the customer feel the benefit of using the kiosk and come back over and over again. The presentation focuses on the challenges post office organisations must consider and on the actions that must be taken to ensure a successful implementation of a self-service kiosk.

Empowering the postal retail network – the Wincor Nixdorf postal solution suite
Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH, Achim von Bremen, director postal solutions
The face of the postal retail network is changing. Market liberalisation, new competitors, cost pressure and new portfolio and sales strategies are the driving factors. This is affecting new IT solutions for front and back end to support different branch types and new sales channels. The enabling of constant portfolio adoptions which have to be migrated quickly to the postal counter or other sales and service points is key. Wincor Nixdorf is empowering this process with the introduction of an innovative postal software suite, based on proven retail and banking standards and entirely integrated into the company’s comprehensive solution portfolio for postal organisations.

Self-checking parcel and letter scale
Pesa Waagen AG, Reto Gianotti, sales & marketing, vice managing director
The self-checking scale for parcels and letters (SCS) has been developed in close cooperation with Swiss Post to become the post office network of tomorrow. The main target was to achieve a customer-friendly and profitable solution. The Pesa platform scale utilises vibrating wire technology for weighing and franking. This technology is based on the mass measurement system and is insensitive to gravity and angle of position. It can be used in any location without the need for recalibration. Using a PC-based touch screen terminal, users select size, destination and speed for letters and parcels delivery requested. The integrated printer then prints the selected stamp value.

Paper to data
Devlin Electronics, David McEvoy, banking technology consultant
The presentation will cover secure paper data capture, signing, securing and archiving at the teller position, improving real and perceived retail post office efficiency, minimising data loss, maximising cost savings in data processing and aiding the shift to a more environmentally friendly world with minimum need for back-office paper handling and archiving. David will also illustrate complementary technology benefits including document signing, desktop estate minimisation and teller efficiency optimisation.

More than 4,000 IER postal kiosks in operation. What's next?
IER S.A., Alexis Hernot, marketing and strategy vice-president
Providing customers with an ever-increasing quality and efficiency of service is the main objective for many postal operators. Introducing innovative self-service solutions is definitely a key factor in reaching this goal and has already been successfully implemented on a large scale by IER. The company has a great deal of experience in manufacturing and worldwide deployment of kiosk solutions, and is currently celebrating the installation of its four-thousandth self-service postal kiosk.

10.00 - 12.00
Mail delivery - the last mile
Day 3 Thursday 2 October

Maximising the doorstep advantage – mobile data capture for post and parcel operators
Motorola Enterprise Mobility, David Picton, head of industry solutions, EMEA
A review of the market-critical need for (and return from) adopting real-time, leading-edge mobile data capture to win the ‘battle of the doorstep’. Factors covered will include: the criticality of real-time delivery visibility; the value of time- and location-specific worker and asset visibility; the role of mobile technology in protecting brand reputation; the scope for offering new services (and revenue streams) through mobile data devices; the role of delivery performance in the online retail experience.

Improving quality of service – the last mile
Lyngsoe Systems A/S, Henrik L. Egestad, sales and marketing director, postal solutions
The presentation focuses on the consequences of not delivering top-quality service for business and private customers. It will also cover how detailed knowledge about what really goes on at the last mile can improve the overall quality of service, optimise the postal logistics and reduce the operational cost of delivery. The session will also look at how information about actual times of receipt can be obtained automatically and instantly, as well as ways to reduce the cost of panellist and test sendings.

Automatic planning and optimisation of mailman routes – with case studies from the Swedish Post
Transvision A/S, Thorbjørn Schmidt-Jacobsen, market director
The presentation will look at how an automatic IT planning system can assist in the optimisation of mailman routes for rural and urban (low-/high-density) letter distribution.

Extracting value with technology in a challenging market
Australia Post, Brendan Boyd, manager network distribution and transport, Blackbay, Larry Klimczyk, managing director
Diverse routes (rural to urban), multi time zones, changing products (domestic and international), human resource objectives, market competitive pressures and financial constraints are just a few of the influencing factors that Australia Post evaluates when investing in technology for their fleet of over 5000 couriers across the country. Learn about the experiences Australia Post will share as they are now in their 3rd generation solution.

Integrating multi-channel parcel flows to increase customer convenience, create revenue streams and reduce costs
ByBox, Dan Turner, co-founder and CTO
The presentation will examine the emergence of unattended delivery systems over the last five years. Subjects covered will include inhibitors to use, both regulatory and commercial; solutions to overcome barriers to market growth; real-time reservation systems and integration of information; and alternative business models.

10.00 - 12.00
Sorting and moving of parcels – part 2
Day 3 Thursday 2 October

Integrated postal operations and open architecture for competitive advantage
Lockheed Martin Distribution Technologies Europe, Andrew Robertson, managing director
Over the last 10 years, European postal sortation has evolved from a collection of isolated mail centres, often referred to as ‘islands of automation’, to national networks. Connectivity has been important to automatic sorting performance and to the more effective use of operational data. Sorting platforms are now poised to enter the next phase of their evolution. The drive to integrate postal data effectively across front- and back-office functions is now embracing open architectures, service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and the integration of commercial off-the-shelf IT products into enterprise service backbones. Operational domain integration skills were important to realising competitive advantage in the past, and will continue to be so in the future, as legacy sorting platforms make this complex transition.

A fully automated solution for parcels unloading
Ancra Systems, Jasper van den Driest, managing director
Good news for postal services and parcel couriers who have to take into account strict ergonomic regulations in addition to speed and reliability. In close cooperation with ColiPoste, French La Poste's parcel operator, Ancra Systems has designed, produced and installed a fully automatic system for unloading trailers with parcels to increase transport efficiency between the ColiPoste hubs. This solution is unique in the world and has been successfully implemented throughout the ColiPoste organisation.

The ultimate solution in parcel singulation
Fives Cinetic, Lorenzo Moroni, sales and marketing director
A singulator is a piece of material-handling equipment that transforms a bulk flow of packages into a gapped, single-file stream for downstream scanning and sorting. The system is fully automated – no manual intervention is required. This presentation shows how the parcel singulator can help maximise the return on investment (ROI).

How the latest vision technologies can improve sorting system productivity and profitability
Datalogic Automation, Giuseppe Centola, sales and marketing manager – transports & logistics
After years of development and improvement, auto-ID products have reached their technological peak. Innovative solutions help customers increase productivity and profitability. Along with the development of well-known laser solutions, vision systems have finally reached the position they deserve in material-handling applications. Datalogic presents for the first time a revolutionary camera system that will change the paradigm in terms of ease of mounting and use, performance, and cost of ownership.

13.00 - 15.00
Transport and logistics
Day 3 Thursday 2 October

Cross docking centres: the black hole
Crawford Group, Sébastien Leichtnam, business development manager
Operations in cross-docking centres and warehouses are often a forgotten topic when performance of the entire supply chain is addressed. The performance of these facilities is hard to measure because there is no integration between intra-logistics (the flow of goods into the warehouse) and extra logistics. Some solutions exist and have been tested by some of the biggest players in the courier and parcel business.

Alternative tractions: the hybrid on IVECO daily
Iveco, Giorgio Mantovani, research & innovation manager
Iveco has a great deal of experience in the production of electric and hybrid traction systems used in urban bus applications. The company is applying hybrid technology to the daily range and is evaluating the Eurocargo range.

Next-generation voice recognition systems for logistics
LXE Inc, Richard Adams, director strategy and marketing
Voice recognition has become an established technology in the field of courier and parcel logistics. In many cases, voice recognition has replaced barcode scanning as a means of data capture. Logistics and IT professionals are now exploring how these two technologies can be used in combination with each other, and alongside emerging RFID technologies. This presentation will explore the benefits that this multi-modal data capture technology will deliver, now and in the future.