John Lewis Case Study

Background:

John Lewis Plc is one of the UK’s leading retailers, and a hugely recognisable brand, with over 35 department stores and more than 84,000 members of staff across the country. The company’s head office, on Victoria Street, London, is the home to c. 2,000 members of staff (Partners), all working to ensure John Lewis remains at the forefront of UK retailing.

Each month the mailroom at John Lewis receives and takes responsibility for over 4,500 parcels, boxes, recorded letters and secure documents; these are sorted and delivered to the end recipient by John Lewis’s own internal messengers.

The original process of recording the incoming mail involved manually recording in notepads the information pertaining to each incoming item, such as – date/time received, courier, recipient, and tracking number. Once all this info had been manually recorded, the mail team would then deliver each item to the final recipient, where a signature would be collected alongside the item in the book.

Challenges & Installation:

Matt Taylor, the mailroom manager at John Lewis, explored the options to make the mail handling process less time consuming, more efficient, and provide better information for reporting purposes.   After looking at various options, Matt identified OmniPost as the solution that best met their needs, key reasons being:-   ease of use, ease of install as web-based,  UK based support team, on-site services, and the ability to deploy the application onto exiting hardware to ensure the quickest return on investment.

OmniPost is a web-based tracking system for internal mail that is designed to be used by the post room to provide up to date, accurate proof of receipt and thereafter proof of delivery for virtually any item type being delivered to and from the post room.

The John Lewis mailroom now book incoming items directly into web-based OmniPost recording all relevant information such as recipient, courier and the items existing consignment number. The moment the save key is pressed, OmniPost automatically sends an email to the recipient notifying them they have received an item in the mailroom with the associated instructions.

When items are delivered to the recipient, the mail team use their existing Android PDA devices, they scan the items for delivery and collect an electronic signature together with a date/time stamp. This data dynamically updates the host database providing a complete end to end trail of the parcels movements.

The data can be accessed at any time from any location with no limitation to the functionality, providing a complete audit trail of all internal mail movements and monitoring of the post room’s productivity and performance.

Result:

Matt Taylor of John Lewis says, “OmniPost was the perfect solution for us, we wanted a simple solution whereby we could have full traceability of our incoming items. The fact we were able to utilise our own devices made the solution even more appealing, not only a cost-saving but also meant our team didn’t need to carry an extra device around with them.

Since the installation, all members of the mailroom have taken to the system very positively. The new way of working is a lot quicker and more accurate than our previous system. ExPD have been brilliant, from the initial demonstration to installation and the after-sales service, they have been helpful and professional. I would recommend OmniPost to any mail room looking at introducing a mail tracking system.”