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@200 No they were not
Weren't the 3 large centres for tracked and over sized only? The advantage for management of mechanisation is that for workers there's nowhere to hide . For manual workers in my mail centre almost everyone takes extended breaks and is free to stop and chat to a mate if they please. It's always been like that. I recall being told to slow down several times by old timers, when I first started. What's the motivation for working harder? Don't say " because you might lose your job". My country needs me, the CWU understand that. The only way I will ever lose my job is if the bloke next to me starts working twice as hard. So no stick and no carrot.
@Pie But they are also restricted by geography. There is only so much that you can stretch the area being served until it becomes unviable. Three machines will simply not cover the whole country it wont it is that simple. It may take big chunks but not to a degree where it cover the country not by far
@AB You are correct even the small psm's require a minimum height level and a lot of MC's simply do not fit that sole criteria. The footprint for the machine is substantial and again many MC's just would not be able to function if they could site a machine.
Once all 3 parcel automation sites are up and running then the majority 2C Outward parcels will be processed there, once processed it will despatched to the MC's for them to process the inward. That is the long term plan.
Three of these machines will have the more processing capacity than all of the current PSM's in total.
Hi Oli,
I don’t think for one second small to medium mail centres will have space for this equipment . Large or very large centres , yes , totally . Everybody else size wise will need something smaller scale . Not outside the boundaries to achieve this but , from what I’ve seen and read from the videos on all the other mail operator case studies on the link provided , the have wholly dedicated buildings , just for parcels . We (RM) would need to change its entire estate for small to medium MC to accommodate PSM at what I am seeing as the current state and size needed for that type of operation. Certainly in AB we don’t have the ceiling height or the floor space for it to be achievable on current size scales .
Perhaps that’s why the hubs are purpose built In high traffic , central area’s and that everyone else doesn’t get the benefit of automated parcel sort on a small scale. Perhaps I’m being overly pessimistic . Is the business cherry picking where to install PSM’s , yip , I couldn’t blame them for that , but it begs the question .... What about everyone else in an office that doesn’t have a PSM. ...:Continue manually ?
Thanks mad .
Very handy to know this for working out .
If you do manage to get actual or design could you let me know . If you can’t , or choose not to reveal that info for confidential reasons I understand as I’m not sure if that would cross data protection / internal confidentiality on a public board.
Some good questions ABRM.
I have looked on the beumer website and it looks like their parcels automation equipment is modular so it should be possible to fit most buildings?
I suppose that the main issue is getting the equipment built and installed?
https://www.beumergroup.com/i/courier-express-parcel/
11 sometimes 12 to run this can be lower on start up of the machine but obviously the throughputs suffer. I dont have the figures for the actual v design but i can assure you it is poor. As for the roll out of future models I know they were working on improvements but whether they come to fruition i have no idea
Mad:
Also , how many people does it take to run a PSM in your office , how big is the team ?
Also do you have your actual vs design IPWH for parcels on a PSM.
Thanks , just putting some numbers together lol.
Mad:
Thanks for the feedback on the PSM you have experienced . I naively thought that PSM would be a saviour for efficiency costs and quality to improve , but off the back of your comments it appears the company isn’t investing wisely in its automation . Which gives me great cause for concern.
Do you know if the roll out of future PSM will be the same build make and model of what we are currently working with , or is it entirely new kit which is much more fit for purpose and meets the needs of our business .
Cheers
I don't recall how much they cost but I remember thinking when we got our £4m fsm that it would take a lot of saved man hours to pay for it.
@200 I suspect you work out of South Mids. The PSMS do not have the ability to sort to walk lever, they would have to be ridiculously large pieces of kit to be able to do that and it would also increase your transportation costs even it was possible which it is not. They are not great machines despite the hype behind them the reject rates are ridiculous and they are limited in size and weight to what they can sort. An extremely poor purchase for the money. Royal Mail do not own the software for the machine either I believe that belongs to an American firm although i may be wrong. Awful bit of business. In my opinion rolling them out even further is not the answer but there you are
We got our machine in 2019. Just too many parcels to put through one machine. We could probably squeeze another in by reducing primary sort but we would still need a full secondary manual sort set up. I'm not saying it doesn't improve productivity but not by much. I'm not sure how for it can break down the inward sort but I doubt that it walk sorts. It will take a long time to recoup the costs associated with buying and installing it.
200iq, how far can you break the inward down to? Is it delivery office level or could you get it down to walk level?
Another issue is that the delivery postie is still going to need to sort the parcels into some logical order before loading it into the van otherwise it becomes a logistical mess.
Thanks for the info 200.
As you may know we don’t have one in AB. Tragic to hear about with the automation kit can’t support your outward 1c clearance enough to allow full automation .
Design flaws in the kit ? Or the size and type of parcels dont allow it to be run anywhere near capacity?
Hold old is your PSM ?
Cheers
The problem we have with our psm is too many rejects and it doesn't sort fast enough so we don't have time to put the outward 1st class through. We would need four machines to get it all through but we don't have the space. It's pointless putting some through and still having a full manual sort so we just put inward through.
Thanks JB.
Worth reading some the case studies gives you a feel for how professional/experienced Beumer they do mention in a few places how they deliver to timescales/schedule including training etc. Of course large scale projects of this nature will have a critical path and milestones and they themselves mention gateways etc. I am confident having been involved with a fairly big build project the project managers/suppliers/key stakeholders will be meeting virtually on a very regular basis and any deviation to plans/risk registers will get reported at least monthly to the project board. Sounds like it is progressing and of course if this can be advanced that would be great news. I expect we will get more detail on the 25th June.
https://www.beumergroup.com/app/uploads/2019/11/DHL-Brussels-hub.pdf
pieface1 thanks for sharing if that is from an article you have read can you pop on the link? Beumer have lots of experience and have done works for Hermes and UK mail plus others.
https://www.beumergroup.com/i/courier-express-parcel/
Pieface, is that for the Warrington hub?
I also hear that RM will be announcing the mail centres that are getting parcel sorting machines this week?
The contract to install the first parcel automation machine has been signed, the company is Beumer.