Isle of Man Post Office Delivers Internal Productivity Savings

Isle of Man Post Office has increased productivity through the re-routing of postal delivery rounds

The underlying trend within postal markets globally has been one of declining volumes over recent years. As mail volumes decline the pressure on reducing all costs increases. Delivery costs represent the largest single element of cost. They are also the most time consuming and complex to analyse. It is against this background that the Isle of Man Post Office invested in the RouteSmartTM software from Integrated Skills Limited (ISL).

Traditionally delivery routes have been constructed after intensive work study analysis of each route. This involves a work study officer rating the performance of the delivery postman to create data about each route and overlaying this information with other data such as volumes handled and call rates. The process was time consuming and sometimes led to error and inconsistencies – and therefore rework. Despite the professional training and expertise of the work study practitioner the analysis was subjective.

As Mike Cubbon, Special Projects at Isle of Man Post Office, says:

“The principal reason for the investment was to be able to construct delivery routes in a timely fashion, without the need for labour intensive work study analysis.” He goes on to say that “Further still, we needed to remove the element of subjectivity in the analysis of the routes. Digital mapping allows accurate measurement of street and path lengths. We also required a solution that enabled us to conduct ‘what if’ scenarios giving us flexibility in our approach to reviewing work patterns and work plans”.

The RouteSmartTM software has been applied to varying types of routes

Conventional walking routes, urban and rural driving routes with combined product delivery and street box collection. As Mike describes: “The outcomes have been as expected, proving the scope for improved productivity, realistic delivery spans and spread. The integration with maps makes it much easier to assess the impact of adjusting deliveries as there is an immediate visual with the relevant information being available by cluster of calls or thoroughfares. The estimated savings generated by use of the software is in the region of £80k per full review of duties and work plans. The cost of ‘manual’ review – with use of work study etc – tends toward the prohibitive and this can lead to an excessive period between. This software removes that barrier and it is planned that annual reviews will be undertaken to capture any change in work volumes or growth.”

Mike concludes: “The software is very intelligent and can hold large amounts of information to give accurate modelling…. Another note worthy of mention is that we were able to ‘mirror’ exact delivery point locations within the mapping which ensured the correct distance from pavement to door, applying calculations to deduct the distance of centre road to pavement has also been applied to the ‘walking’ routes.”

Industry leaders depend on RouteSmart for achieving maximum efficiency through route optimisation software solutions. Global and national operations such as Isle of Man Post Office, FedEx Home Delivery and the United States Postal Service know that every minute and every mile counts. That’s why these organisations rely upon RouteSmart for precise street address-level routing via a toolset that is continually being refined.

Integrated Skills Limited is the UK’s exclusive partner for RouteSmart and the UK’s foremost optimisation software specialist having applied software solutions to numerous vehicle based operations in the waste & recycling and logistics sectors.