People powering parcels

We’re continuing our automation journey at pace as we pass a number of key milestones – and it’s our people who are driving this rapid growth.

Press play to watch our new film celebrating our success. In the film, we visit Swindon Mail Centre to talk to the colleagues who were involved in trialling our first ever parcel sort machine (PSM), which opened for business in December 2016.

Three years on, we will close this year with 17 PSMs, as Home Counties North Mail Centre becomes the first site to start using a second.

The film concentrates on the people that have helped produce such successful results as we move from just 12% parcels automated in 2018/19 to more than 80% by 2023/24. This is a key part of our ‘turnaround and grow’ plan.

Earlier this month, we passed more than half a billion parcels successfully sorted on our PSMs since Swindon’s went into operation. Further, for the first time, more than 10 million parcels went through all 16 machines within a single week, thanks to Glasgow Mail Centre going live with theirs.

The milestones will keep coming as we aim to have 40 parcel machines in place by the end of our Journey 2024.

National service deliver director, Ricky McAulay, and process and collections director, Wayne Jay, have hailed the team effort – praising all colleagues involved from procurement to design, project colleagues and the operational teams. That’s what this film celebrates.

Jessica Lewis, our first ever work area manager for PSMs in Swindon, says: ‘We were sorting all of our parcels manually so it’s been a big chance, but very quickly we realised the future was in our hands and we embraced it.

‘It’s been a really great effort and we’re really proud. It’s just the start – let’s see what more we can do.’