Prime Vision launches the Cloud Data Factory

Every day postal and parcel companies create billions of data interactions. Sometimes small, sometimes large, sometimes even coincidental, but each of these interactions creates an opportunity to exploit data. To record a snapshot of a particular event, at a particular time, in particular conditions. These events create data that has great value, in terms of savings, efficiency and potential extra revenue. It offers companies the opportunity to gain a true understanding of their operation at a micro-level, and the potential to understand where money is lost, time wasted, processes inefficient or even where extra money can be made.

The good news is the traditional set-up of postal, parcel and logistics companies offers a good framework to take advantage of this exciting technology. Every minute, thousands of vehicles, equipment and personnel interacting with environment and society providing invaluable information and insights.

The challenge is to make sense of this vast sea of operational data and from it, produce business insights. It is with this in mind that Prime Vision is launching the Cloud Data Factory.

A Cloud-based system that harvests all available data from an infinite number of sources coming from a typical sorting operation, the Cloud Data Factory provides a platform to easily store, process, distribute and analyse this data. This enables the customer to confidently make commercial and operational decisions that can fine-tune operational efficiency, performance and services. Additionally, it creates the potential to generate lucrative new revenue streams by selling the insights to interested third parties. This could be environmental data to a metrological company or maybe real-time travel information to a motoring organisation.

James Schlechter, Account Director at Prime Vision, is responsible for introducing the system to the market. He says: "The key to success in the modern environment for digital postal and parcel operators begins with realising data is your key asset. But before learning how to best use this data, a foundation is needed. This is where the Cloud Data Factory comes in. Capture the data, analyse the data to improve operations and support growth."

Internet of Postal things

Based in Delft in the Netherlands, Prime Vision is a postal, parcel and logistics-oriented software house and systems integrator. They regard themselves to be pioneers in the field of Internet of Postal things (IoPT) and postal cloud systems. This confidence is backed up by years of experience and expertise developing platforms for sorting operation and pattern-recognition systems in the Postal and Parcel Industry.

Whilst some operators may be cautious of journeying into this new frontier, James has comforting words: "It is our vast industry experience and knowledge, combined with an innovative edge that allows Prime Vision to introduce our customers to new technological methods with the confidence that they are in the hands of experts that truly understand their business."

But before taking advantage of these new technological opportunities postal companies need to address a couple of widespread obstacles.

Firstly, traditional legacy systems, equipment and plant were designed and engineered to be simple and passive. They relied on this simplicity and routine to avoid failures and ensure continuity of service. Quite simply, they weren't engineered to deliver big data. However, these machines can be made to be "smart' in a number of ways. It may be just a matter of plugging it into a network but usually it requires the addition of smart connectors that are set to record an action or series of events.

The second problem to overcome is that whilst most modern-day operations have the potential to deliver vast data, once collected, it is then stored in separate locations, on stand-alone systems, losing the opportunity to generate valuable business insights.

When the developers at Prime Vision first began to design the Cloud Data Factory, the problem behind such a concept was immediately apparent. How can such a varied collection of sources supply the common form of data to be analysed? Some sources, already fully digital, need little or no normalisation and are ready for analysis, but other systems operate with a wide variety of programming languages or outputs. How could this technology be applied to sorting machines, roll containers, scanners or a hand-held terminal?

Prime Vision solved this problem by creating Smart Data Exchange gateways. Basically, a smart connector through which both legacy and current data from different sources can be transform into one single generic code form. Once transformed, this data can easily be analysed and data combined making it available for use with a varied choice of applications.

Most postal companies already use basic data to generate trends or model general flows and traffic, but this is only the tip of the iceberg in IoPT analytics. This data can be used to predict what is going to happen in the next few hours and when necessary, react to what has happened in the last few minutes. It can help re-route deliveries to allow for weather or traffic conditions. Long term, you can plan for maintenance and plant upgrades years in advance. The flexibility of this process can allow for input from both the delivery company and the recipient to actively influence both future and ongoing events. This ensures the right resources in place, at the right time, at the lowest possible cost.

So is this the future? James has no doubts as to where the industry is headed: "For any postal or parcel company its crucial they make this journey. In the very near future, IoPT technology will be essential to increase productivity, monitor and optimise operations. IoT will force new data-driven business models, define our ways of working but ultimately, greatly improve the customer experience."

For more information about the Cloud Data Factory please visit www.primevision.com.