DHL has entrusted the management of approximately 900 Packstations in Germany and a further 1,500planned units to T-Systems, a division of telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, under a
four-year agreement.T-Systems announced that it is now responsible for all services related to Packstationinformation and communications technology from the parcel drop-off and collection machines throughto the back-office computers and data network. At the end of 2005, DHL outsourced its informationtechnology (IT) to T-Systems. In the course of this outsourcing contract, the companies developedthe IT solution for the Packstations which has now been put into operation.
The ICT company said it has developed the “Packstation Center” solution to run the network,managed from an operational service centre in Hanover where the central data processing centre islocated. All of the self-service stations are connected to a data network that securely forwardsall of the information contained in the customer requests to the central data centre. An e-mail andSMS application makes sure that DHL automatically informs its customers when their package hasarrived at its destination.
T-Systems also coordinates the cooperation with additional service providers such as thosethat clean or provide maintenance services to the package stations.
DHL plans to add a further 1,500 sites by 2009, giving it a nationwide network of 2,400self-service parcel machines. Customers can pick up and ship packages at the 24-hour stations aswell pay for the services with their bank card.
