Data capture for high volume freight

Palletways, Europe’s largest and fastest growing palletised freight network, handles over 27,000 pallets per day. They recognised the need for providing customers with a secure system for not only tracking the location of their pallet, but also its condition, from collection to delivery.

There were no solutions available to meet their criteria for data capture bearing in mind the volume of freight that passes through their network on a daily basis and with pallets collected by one member, processed in a central hub and then delivered by another member. With manual scanning proving slow and costly, as well as open to human error, Palletways decided to develop its own solution.

Palletways Archway Scanning System
Inspired by an architectural surveyor using a high definition camera to survey the Notre Dame Cathedral, Palletways invested £750k in designing, developing and implementing a unique system that uses a network of scanners and HD cameras to scan and photograph every vehicle and each individual pallet on Palletways sites.

Initial attempts to use conventional digital photography proved unsuccessful. However, through their supplier of proof-of-deliver scanners, the development team were referred to a specialist who had previously worked with the FBI on handwriting recognition, forensic typewriter ribbon analysis and image scanning of cheese during maturation. This link provided the breakthrough.

Consisting of 144 scanners and 16 high definition cameras, the Palletways Archway Scanning System (P.A.S.S.) provides full visibility of all vehicles and the status, location and physical condition of every individual pallet. P.A.S.S. is positioned at the entrance and exit of each warehouse and reads the barcode of each individual pallet whilst also photographing its condition, providing a record of each consignment as it enters and leaves the site.

This information, around 10GB of data per day, is then fed into Palletways Operations in Real Time (P.O.R.T), a web portal which provides management, employees, over 300 network members across Europe and Palletways’ customers with a single point of access for all services in real time, 24/7/365.

Since its implementation, P.A.S.S. has proved invaluable to enhancing the efficiency of the Palletways network, directly accounting for a 23% increase in the number of pallets handled per employee per shift. This has resulted from the greater accuracy and consistency of scanning, which has created swifter turnaround times for all vehicles and provided higher levels of on-time deliveries for customers.

P.A.S.S. has also made an impact on Health and Safety performance as a result of ending the process of scanning vehicles manually, with a 33% rise in the number of pallets handled per employee incident.

The P.A.S.S. and P.O.R.T. systems have delivered considerable improvements to customer satisfaction. Since their introduction, they have significantly contributed to a 6% reduction in direct cost per pallet. Furthermore, by providing HD images of every individual pallet, customers have full access to the position and condition of their consignments at any time, which has also resulted in a significant reduction in false claims for loss or damaged goods.

The development of P.A.S.S. took just three years from conception to launch and is now being rolled out to every hub and depot throughout the entire Palletways European network. It has also won a number of national awards, including the 2013 British Computer Society & Computing UK IT Industry Awards ‘Business IT Innovation of the Year Award’, beating competition from major telecoms companies, including Virgin Media, BT and Telefonica UK.