Blackbay, a market leading provider of postal and logistics mobile workforce solutions today announced that, following successful trials, Royal Mail has chosen Blackbay’s Delivery Connect solution to provide a real-time mobility solution for the majority of Royal Mail’s tracked products, including Special Delivery and Recorded Signed For.  Delivery Connect will run on Intermec CN3 mobile computers and is being deployed to 25,000 Royal Mail delivery vehicles.

Blackbay is working with global IT services company CSC who are leading the overall programme to deliver the mobile worker service for Royal Mail tracked services.  Blackbay’s highly scalable and robust mobile solution will enable Royal Mail to provide increased quality of service to customers by enabling them to view the status of their deliveries in real-time via Royal Mail’s web portal.  It will also help Royal Mail to improve its efficiency and reduce operational costs by replacing its current paper based tracking system with a real-time mobile solution.  Delivery Connect now provides Royal Mail with the ability to collect proof of delivery and to capture event and time stamping throughout the delivery process providing visibility to Royal Mail’s operations and customers in real-time.

“The Blackbay team added significant value to this project with the depth of their experience in the postal industry and their understanding of our business requirements.  I am confident that Delivery Connect will help us to continue to meet the ever increasing demands of our customers and ensure that we retain our competitive advantage in a market place where competition is increasing,” said Robin Dargue, Chief Information Officer, Royal Mail. 

Blackbay has a strong relationship with Royal Mail, the leading provider of mail and parcel delivery services in the UK, having successfully delivered mobile workforce solutions to its Parcelforce Worldwide business for over five years, and currently has 7,000 users of the Blackbay Delivery Connect software within the Royal Mail Group. 

During earlier trials of the service Blackbay worked closely with CSC and hardware supplier Intermec, as it was crucial that the ecosystem of suppliers provided an integrated mobility solution that exactly met Royal Mail’s requirements.

A key element for Royal Mail’s proof of delivery solution was scalability.  “After working with Blackbay previously, we were confident that the Delivery Connect solution would be able to meet that requirement,” explained Guy Hains, President of CSC’s European operations.  “Our relationship with Blackbay and the other suppliers working with us to deliver the service enables us to offer Royal Mail a fully managed mobility service for tens of thousands of users in a growing area of their business.”

“Working closely with Blackbay we are able to ensure its software combined with the Intermec CN3 provides our customers with a proven feature rich solution,” said Patrick J. Byrne, Intermec President and CEO.  “Our relationship with Blackbay has helped us to develop our role as a leading hardware provider to the postal sector and additionally to meet the growing demands for mobility solutions within the supply chain sector.”

“The UK e-retailers are experiencing strong year on year growth from the resulting move away from purchasing goods in store to buying them online, which has dramatically increased the demand for home delivery.  In this rapidly growing market it was essential that working with Royal Mail’s other key suppliers for this service, we could offer a solution that was designed to manage future growth and enable Royal Mail to provide its customers with real-time information about the delivery of its tracked products.  The experience that Blackbay has in the transport & logistics market has helped Royal Mail deliver an excellent and highly scalable service to its customers,” concluded Larry Klimczyk, MD of Blackbay.