DHL India Opts For Wireless Scanners

With the enhancement in the level of business competition, the want for real-time information is becoming critical, especially for DHL Express India, a freight logistics company. The importance of real-time information of the shipments in transit becomes all the more important because of the nature of the goods and the delivery deadlines.

DHL Express India is a subsidiary of DHL Express worldwide and has operations throughout the country. The company rolled out Wireless Scanners for its courier field force agents. The wireless scanners keep them posted with real time information on pick-ups and delivery of shipments. India is one of the first countries in the DHL International Network to adopt this new technology, which was rolled out at an investment of Euros 5,00,000. The scanners have been deployed across 12 cities — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Tirupur and Hyderabad.

Manual Entry Of Shipments

Earlier, the customer posted his/her pick-up request through a pager and the challenge here was to get the acknowledgement from the staff on the field, whether they had received the request or not. “Just imagine a field staff employee delivering hundred shipments a day, literally writing the shipment details at the customer’s door and again posting the same data after reaching the office,” explained Prasad Dhumal, National IS Manager, DHL Express India.

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The wireless scanner considerably helps reduce the interval time between posting and recording the information from the field to the shipment record database, which is usually the consumer service centre. Initially, all the data about pick-up and delivery was only getting recorded once the agent reached the base office.

The challenge during the implementation was negotiating with the telecom companies about integrating the technology and deciding on the tariffs accordingly. Since this was the first implementation of its type in the country, telecom companies didn’t want to take any chances. However finally, a major telecom player in India agreed to offer its services for the wireless scanner.
Scenario After The Introduction Of The Wireless Scanner

After the introduction of the wireless scanners, the agents are able to post real time data about pick-ups and delivery. “Unlike earlier times, when the agents were unable to accept the pick-up once they had passed the customer checkpoint, the scanners now enable the customer service agents to post the pick-up request to a field employee who is nearest to the respective customer checkpoint,” elaborated Dhumal.

“The scanner has GPRS as the prime mode of connectivity with GSM in the backup, connected to the DHL network,” informed Dhumal. The information gets posted on the global website fifteen minutes after it is posted on the scanner through GPRS. In case the GPRS is down, the GSM network is configured to check for data every three minutes. The GSM backup comes handy as every city has some pockets with weak connectivity.