Authorised Belgravium Technologies / TouchStar partner Technical Direct are a Microsoft Gold Partner delivering bespoke software applications across windows, web and mobile applications. The company has worked with some of the UK's most prominent companies for almost two decades, reducing costs, improving operational efficiencies and delivering return on IT investment. Technical Direct can list companies such as British Gas, BBC Worldwide, HSBC, IMI and Severn Trent amongst its ever-expanding client base.
Technical Direct recently delivered a mobile computing solution for a national parcel courier. Belgravium and Technical Direct are now co-promoting this solution to the courier and parcel sector. The following is a summary of how the parcel courier project was handled.
The high level requirement was clear enough - the removal of all paperwork from the sortation processes across the UK. Careful analysis by Technical Direct helped identify how the existing paper-based systems being utilised were not always as expected.
We provided a distributed solution comprising of :
- A central database with filtered replication to satellite databases at each of the sortation locations
- A mobile data capture application with barcode scanning and real-time validation of parcel movements, along with caching during network downtime
- Localised web services pooling access to the databases
- A centralised web application providing administrative functions
- Direct integration with the existing legacy systems
The solution was developed using the following technologies:
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Enterprise, Express and Compact editions)
- Microsoft Internet Information Services with ASP.NET & .NET Framework
- Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 & .NET Compact Framework
Benefits
- Reduced sortation times achieved by the removal of paper-based systems
- Sortation accuracy improved by real-time validation of package movements
- Improved customer relations due to the availability of additional package tracking information
