Rolling progress
The rollout of Later Acceptance Times (LATs) for Tracked 24 is beginning across the UK. This represents the delivery of a significant element of our agreement with CWU.
Our enhanced Tracked 24 offering means we can accept items into our distribution centres later into the evening, up to 1.30am, for next-day delivery. The market is changing quickly, and we must respond to that change.
Customers are ordering items later in the evening and expecting to receive their items the next day.
Flower company Bloom & Wild is the first company to sign up. We hope they will be the first of many and that we will quickly win new business - from both new and existing customers.
The introduction of LATs affects our entire pipeline, involving colleagues in Logistics, Process, and Delivery. CMA and Unite are fully supportive.
Not all units are involved, but the first phase of around 180 have now launched dedicated afternoon parcel deliveries.
One of those units is Kirkcaldy delivery office. New delivery routes are being covered by colleagues on a rotational basis, and there have been increased earning opportunities for part-timers.
Delivery office manager Keith Fraser said: ‘It’s a big change, but the people we’ve lined up to do the work have committed to cover the days and the new routes.’
Postman Chris Dowling added: ‘It’s a positive move and definitely makes us more competitive. It might be a challenge delivering to areas we haven't delivered to before but I’ve been looking forward to trying out the new routes.’
Bloom & Wild has been impressed with the results so far. Senior operations manager Henry Mower said: ‘We have seen encouraging early signs around the operation and performance.’
Sue Whalley, CEO, Post & Parcels UK, said: 'Offering Later Acceptance Times is an important growth opportunity for us. This is a key part of our agreement with CWU and we have been able to work together to make the changes to start offering this to customers.
'We’ve had some really good feedback from our first customer and are working on bringing in others.'
Our network review
The network review has successfully deployed across Logistics, as agreed with CWU. As with all national and very large changes, we are jointly monitoring the review closely and regularly discuss learning and improvement opportunities with our joint network working group.
Our business aim remains to have an efficient and highly utilised network operation. We plan to hold a joint post-implementation review in the coming weeks, in which we can reflect on our success and further opportunities.
