This article explains how the complete courier/parcel supply chain works.
There are two types of customer- Corporate and Retail.
Corporate customer are again of two type –one those are having contract with the courier company for daily Pick-up/delivery of parcels and couriers at specified time on daily basis, and other one, who do not have any contact but call the collection centre on need basis for pick up of couriers and parcels.
Retail customer works in a different way- they either call at the call centre/collection centre for pick up or personally visit at the collection center and book the parcel.
Pick Up Registration
When a retail customer call the collection centre/call centre, or visits the web site for pick up and specifies the address and time to pick up. Subsequent to this a pick up request is generated in the system and this no is also given to the customer for reference.
Pick Up Process
The courier person gets the pick up schedules from the collection centre. This pick up schedule contains the time of pick up and pick up addresses of the customers (Retail and Corporate) and is normally based on the route. Based on this pick up schedule, the courier person visits the customer’s place; pick ups the courier and hands over the pre-printed bar coded Air Way Bill (AWB). After the collection, these parcels are handed over at the collection centre, where these are scanned with the scanner and entries such as address etc are made in the system. Now, each parcel is identified in the system with unique bar coded AWB. These parcels may be sorted out at the collection centre and collected in a bag; which given a unique bar coded ID for traceability. If the organization is IT savvy and having good IT infrastructure then it normally provides PDAs to the courier persons. The courier person can directly downloaded pick up schedule through system into the PDA
DC Operations
The DC receives the bags from different collection centers and scans the bar coded ID. Immediately after scanning the bar code, all the parcels are in received status in DC. These parcels are sorted and consolidated based on destinations. This job is normally done through scanner, which automates the process and virtually eliminates the errors in transactions. These parcels are collected in bag and this bag is given a unique ID for specific destination.
Now these bags are despatched to the destination DCs through surface transport or through air. If these bags are despatched through air, then DC shall schedule its operations and vehicle so that it reaches to airport before the departure of the flight to the destination city. At the time of despatching these bags ( Also AWB of the parcels) are no more in DCs , but in in-transit in the system
Destination DC Operation
The Destination DC schedules its vehicle for collection of parcels from the air port based on the time of arrival of flights. After receiving these bags, bar coded IDs of bags are scanned. Immediately after scanning, these parcels are in received status at the destination DC. At DC,these bags are opened and parcels are de-consolidated and sorted out based on ZIP/PIN/Area code and are further despatched to the Collection Centers/Delivery centers.
Delivery Process
After receiving the bag and on scanning the bar code ID, the status of these parcels gets changed to “received” at delivery centre. Again, the Delivery/collection centre deconsolidates and sorts out the parcels/courier based on ZIP/PIN/Delivery area code or route. These are again bagged in a bag which has a unique ID based on destination area. The delivery sheet is prepared for delivery of these parcels or the sheets can be downloaded in the PDA also. This Delivery Sheet/PDA and parcel bag are handed over to the courier person
The courier person along with delivery sheet/PDA reaches at the consignee’s address and delivers the parcel and takes the signature of the consignee on delivery sheet /PDA. After delivery of the parcels/courier, the courier person reaches at collection/Delivery centre and updates the status of the shipments in the system by manually or by uploading the PDA data in the system. This activity closes the transaction and updates the status of AWB as “delivered”.
At any given point of time, if customer wants to know the status he/she can see by entering the AWB no on the company’s web site or making an enquiry on the call centre.
Key Words: Courier Supply chain, Parcel suply chain, how a acourier company works, how couriers/ shipments are tracked, FedEX supply chain, UPS Supply chain, DHL supply chain, processes of a courier company.
