Recognizing
the need to automate a manual work process is often simple.
Deciding how to automate is another matter altogether.
Consider
the experience of Hays DX, the flagship unit of Hays plc,
a leading UK business-to-business services firm with more
than $2 billion in annual sales.
Hays
DX pioneered the concept of a member-to-member document
exchange service 30 years ago. Today, it is the world's
leading private mail delivery service, an enviable and potentially
lucrative position given the rapid pace of postal deregulation
and privatization now underway around the globe.
"Our
Document Exchange Service came into being during the Royal
Mail industrial disputes of the 1970s," explains Warren
Brunskill, who serves as General Manager, Operations Systems
for Hays DX. "At the time several law firms in London were
concerned about erratic mail delivery and banded together
to form a membership-based document exchange service to
assure the prompt delivery of important legal and time-sensitive
documents."
Easy
Drop-off and Pick-up
Today,
the Hays DX service has grown into a network of more than
35,000 members in the UK and Ireland, where member businesses
can exchange mail pieces with each other without using the
Royal Mail.
Instead,
members drop-off their mail each evening at one of more
than 3,600 Hays document exchange locations in the UK and
Ireland. The mail is sorted, delivered to an exchange location
near the recipient member, and is available for pick-up
the following morning by 9:00 a.m.
The
Hays DX service processes more than one million mail pieces
each day and is the leading mail service among lawyers in
the UK. It also has equal presence in the retail, banking
and financial services markets and has established itself
in the property, construction, government and health care
sectors.
More
recently, as part of its growth strategy to expand the document
exchange market by collecting mail from and delivering it
to more points, Hays DX acquired a courier company. With
the acquisition came an informal private mail delivery service
-- and an immensely more complex sortation scheme.
"We
were faced with the prospect of having to sort mail by hand
according to two separate formats," continues Brunskill.
"Our existing DX format consisted of about 30,000 combinations
and could be memorized by most employees after several months
of on-the-job training.
A
Complex Sortation
"But
to expand delivery to points outside of the DX network,
our people would also have to sort according to the delivery
code system utilized by the Royal Mail. And that sortation
system consisted of millions of combination and was far
too complex to commit to memory."
To solve the dilemma, Hays DX selected the most advanced
automated sorting technology available today -- the fast,
comprehensive and versatile Olympus II barcode sorting systems
from Pitney Bowes MailCode. And to maximize the performance
of the advanced systems, Hays DX deployed nearly 40 of the
high-speed, high-integrity units throughout the firm's network
of depots in the UK and Ireland.
The
results are spectacular. First, the new equipment is processing
a wide spectrum of mixed mail -- including envelopes ranging
from DL to C4 in size -- at an average speed of 30,000 mail
pieces per hour. That's a capability exclusive to the Olympus
equipment and unmatched by any other sorting technology
in the UK or the world.
Second,
Hays DX is absorbing added volume easily. The sorting operation
is already processing mail at an annual rate in excess of
200 million pieces and has the capacity to easily accommodate
up to 350 million pieces. Plus, there's no need to worry
about the cost or time involved in employee training, errors
or absences. The equipment's always there.
Intelligent
Sorting
But
just as important as the speed and inclusive nature of the
automated sort is the ability to handle different delivery
address formats -- such as Hays DX system and Royal Mail
postal coding format -- and automatically select one over
the other to achieve better delivery performance.
For example, if a piece of mail is addressed to a recipient
using the Royal Mail postal code, but the recipient is also
a member of the DX service, the equipment will automatically
sort the mail piece for delivery via the recipient's nearby
document exchange location. This assures prompt delivery,
helps lower costs by eliminating costly hand delivery to
multiple end-points, and promotes use of the DX service
channel.
Another
key benefit comes from the equipment's compatibility with
innovative voice recognition technology. "Most of our manual
sort employees are skilled in a production setting and are
well-equipped to shift into the role of equipment operator,"
explains Brunskill.
"But
we also need people to decipher the addressees on mail pieces
that are handwritten and can't be handled by the equipment,"
he continues. "Even though the Olympus II features state-of-the-art
Optical Character Reading technology, a failure-to-scan
rate of just one percent means we have more than 10,000
mail pieces each night that must be handled manually."
At first, Hays DX hoped to retrain any workers displaced
by the new systems to perform the manual 'read and sort'
task via remote video encoding technology. But this required
workers who were accustomed to active and manually-oriented
labor to sit all day and type on a computer keyboard. The
results of the retraining were mixed at best.
"We
didn't want to discharge our people, some of whom had been
with us for 10 or 15 years, just because we had invested
in automated technology and they were slow to adapt to a
new task and skill level," adds Brunskill.
The
solution came in the form of new video encoding units that
are equipped with innovative voice recognition technology.
Now, everyone in the Hays DX mail center can easily handle
the manual 'scan and read' assignment and serve as equipment
operators as well.
All that is needed is an individual voice recognition file,
which workers create by talking into a recording device
for about 20 minutes. The system can accommodate all manner
of accents and dialects, as long as each worker speaks and
pronounces words consistently. This voice file serves as
a thumb print and each time a worker logs onto the video
encoding unit, the system automatically accesses the worker's
voice print file.
"The
voice recognition technology eliminated all the issues for
us related to retraining," says Brunskill. "If our employees
can see and read, which they had to do already to sort the
mail by hand, they can use the voice recognition technology
to sort the handwritten mail by video encoding technology
without the need to type on a computer keyboard.
Investment
Protection
The
Olympus II systems can also accommodate a futuristic track
and trace delivery notification capability called PostBackOffice
(PBO), another software innovation from Pitney Bowes MailCode.
With
PBO, the sender of a particular piece of correspondence
can have several options to verify its delivery, including
having an e-mail notification sent to confirm that the intended
recipient has received a specific mail piece.
Such
a capability would be useful to credit card issuers, for
example, to help prevent theft or fraud, or insurance companies
that need to confirm receipt of important correspondence
such as notices of cancellation. Hays DX and Pitney Bowes
MailCode are reviewing how best to tailor and deploy this
sophisticated notification capability in the UK.
Indeed,
Hays DX and Pitney Bowes MailCode are working together in
a relationship that is more partner-oriented than customer/vendor
to assure the full and ongoing success of the new automated
sorting capability.
"We
are looking to apply for additional licenses from the postal
regulator to deliver more mail to more locations in the
UK," says Brunskill. "And we need expert help from innovators
like Pitney Bowes MailCode to develop the superior services,
the added-value services, and the lower cost services that
will fuel the continued growth of our private mail delivery
service."
Analyst
Reports