The way forward
As part of our ‘turnaround and grow’ plan, we’ll automate more than 80% of our parcels by 2024.
One team that’s already started on this journey is Home Counties North Mail Centre. With their parcel sorting machine, they regularly sort 10,000 parcels per hour.
Play the RMtv video above to hear what the team had to say.‘I definitely understand that packets are the way forward,’ said OPG Sunita Gajjar. ‘People are doing a lot more online shopping so we have to move with the times.’
OPG Peter Sillis, said: ‘We put around 10,000 parcels through our PSM every hour. On a shift, it can end up being around 60,000. In the beginning, it was very experimental and we were all new. But experience is everything and as time has gone on we have all become better.
‘Companies like Amazon have had the right technology for years. Royal Mail has to move with the market to stay competitive and remain number one.’
National operations director, Simon Barker, believes automation is critical to the future.
‘At the moment, we don’t count everything that goes through our mail centres. Automation will allow us to do that.
‘It will allow us to understand and read barcodes to measure and weigh the parcel. But equally, it will present the parcel at the right height for either manual sortation or a level of sortation, which will replace manual and allow us to be more efficient in processing parcels.’
