Poste Italiane, USPS and postal industry suppliers Siemens, Iveco, NetDespatch and Crisplantwere the winners of the first ever Postal Technology International Awards presented yesterday at
Post-Expo.Poste Italiane picked up the Service Provider of the Year award for its financial turnaround andgrowth in recent years. The year 2008 saw the Italian postal operator’s seventh consecutivefinancial year in profit and it continued to improve revenues and profits in the first half of thisyear. Poste Italiane’s financial results and its ability to innovate have enabled the company tomove up the US magazine Fortune ratings that list the World’s Most Admired Companies.
The Environmental Achievement of the Year award was won by the US Postal Service which has madegreat strides forward over the past year in terms of environmental achievements. These include thereplacement of 6,500 vehicles with 1,900 alternative fuel and gasoline/electric hybrid vehicles.The 1,900 vehicles will bring the total number of alternate fuel-capable vehicles in the PostalService fleet to more than 43,000.
Supplier of the Year is Crisplant, a leading global supplier of automated material handlingsystems. This year the company has won contracts with Posten Norge for its LS-4000CB greensortation system, which cuts energy costs by 75%, and with TNT Pakketservice for its LS-4000Eparcel sortation system, which includes innovative new motor technology, low carbon emissions andlow lifecycle costs.
Siemens Mobility won the Automation Technology of the Year award for its Visicon Singulatorproduct. Launched in January, this is a new and advanced technology for singulation to handlethroughput intelligently, gently and quietly, using less than a quarter of the floor space ofconventional systems. The conveying system can singulate up to 9,000 items per hour continuouslywithout recirculation and can be customised to accommodate different facilities and applications.The Visicon Singulator works with image processing and a special matrix of several belt conveyorsin order to singulate items with an appropriate gap between them and to align them for furthersortation further downstream.
Iveco gained the Transport/Logistics Innovation of the Year award for its telematics fleetmanagement and driver assistance package, Blue&Me Fleet. Launched in September 2008, thissolution obtains vehicle data, such as fuel consumption, mileage, speed, and engine usage from thevehicle, while also tracking the driver identity so that data can be correlated, allowingindividual driver’s activity and driving behaviour to be monitored and managed by the company.
The Delivery Innovation of the Year award went to NetDespatch and First Ondemand for theirSecureScan product. Launched in March, this is a fully authenticated proof of delivery system thatensures that goods are only released to authorised recipients. The system requires twocryptographically paired encoded barcodes to be matched on delivery to confirm the recipients IDand for an additional level of security, a PIN number to be entered. This eliminates the need for ahand-written signature and is not only safer but also more convenient. The result of a jointdevelopment by First Ondemand and NetDespatch, SecureScan uses the latest Internet, auto ID andwireless communications technology to provide a fully authenticated proof of delivery. The systemis expected to significantly reduce the costs associated with the mis-delivery of high value goods,including friendly fraud, and subsequent disputed delivery claims.
