The global postal industry has had a difficult time in recent years, with challenges only increasing in 2024. The industry simultaneously has faced declining letter volumes and increased operating costs worldwide. This has led some countries to take measures, such as Germany revising postal laws to lower delivery frequency standards in a bid to ease burdens. However, in today’s on-demand society, steps like these risk undermining service quality and customer trust in vital infrastructure.
Strict compliance regulations and heavy financial penalties from regulatory authorities have made the situation more challenging. For example, Ofcom recently fined Royal Mail £10.5m for failing to meet delivery targets for first and second class mail — for a second year in a row. The postal operator is required to deliver 93% of first class mail within a day, a target that the company missed by nearly 20% in the year ending March 2024. Many postal services are struggling to strike a careful balance between consistently meeting these service-level agreements (SLAs) whilst also keeping costs under control.
The current state of fluorescent barcode scanning — is it good enough?
Barcodes have been an integral part of postal operations for a long time, but few stop to consider the key role fluorescent barcodes play in making sure letters and parcels get where they need to go.
Fluorescent ink is used to print barcodes that contain information like destination zip codes or delivery routes, allowing for easy detection and scanning by specialised sorting machines. This technology significantly speeds up the sorting and routing processes and has been part and parcel of postal automation for many years now.
However, these machines are mainly used for initial processing at major sorting centres, and not throughout the entire delivery chain — the dwindling parcel volume along the delivery route simply doesn’t warrant the investment in expensive UV scanners. Thus, postal workers cannot benefit from automated routing at subsequent touchpoints and instead have to manually sort the mail. Additionally, even at sorting centres, the process can sometimes require manual intervention in scenarios when smudged or incomplete ink leads to incorrect routing.
All this manual work makes the process prone to sorting errors and potentially causes delivery delays due to misplaced letters, eventually resulting in unhappy customers, frustrated employees, compliance issues and significant fines.
Now possible: Fluorescent barcode scanning on smart devices
One solution to the current status quo is fluorescent barcode scanning on the go.
As mentioned, historically only specialised machines in sorting centres could scan fluorescent barcodes, which limited their benefits to fixed locations. However, new developments in smart data capture software can enable any camera-based handheld device (e.g., smartphones or handheld computers) to perform the same function. This innovation represents a major leap forward by offering postal workers a new level of flexibility and efficiency without any hardware investment. For instance, it allows them to access automated routing information in real time, make corrections if needed, create an audit trail, and gather operational insights — anytime, anywhere.
It also unlocks other key benefits for postal services. By enabling additional scanning points throughout the distribution network, post services obtain real-time visibility into the movement of letters. This tracking capability helps organisations prove they are meeting delivery deadlines, thus creating an audit trail and lowering the possibility of penalties.
Case study: CTT
Take, for example, Portugal’s oldest mail provider CTT Correios de Portugal. After integrating fluorescent barcode scanning capabilities into its workers’ mobile app, all of its 5,000 postal workers were able to capture and track fluorescent orange barcodes using their phones, leading to more than 40,000 scanned letters every hour and a read rate of more than 98%.
CTT therefore also gained access to a goldmine of actionable operational insights. When provided with comprehensive data regarding mail volumes and delivery patterns, postal services can identify high-volume areas, peak times, or workflow bottlenecks and work towards improving workforce and infrastructure planning, helping them meet strict SLAs and avoid hefty fines, in addition to enhancing customer satisfaction. CTT is now so confident in its new-found efficiency that it increased its audit sample size from 500 monthly items to 80,000.
This scanning technology could also send recipient notifications very soon, updating customers when postal services dispatch, sort, or deliver a letter. Such features would enhance transparency and build trust with customers.
A competitive edge for the future
Given the critical need for postal services to reconsider their operations, the timing of this technology is crucial. By integrating this mobile data capture capability, they may address long-standing inefficiencies and more effectively adapt to changing customer demands and regulatory requirements.
This technology is transformative for the industry since it makes use of existing infrastructure to streamline delivery routes, improve compliance, and ensure customer satisfaction. By integrating smart data capture innovations like fluorescent barcode scanning on smart devices, the postal industry can tap into new efficiencies whilst avoiding significant hardware costs, unlocking increased profitability and ultimately securing a sustainable future for itself.
- Digital Supply Chain
