"Databases to Coordinate DHL/Postal Service Delivery"

Tania Klaus

Industry News

March 22, 1999

"Databases to Coordinate DHL/Postal Service Delivery"

The United States Postal Service (USPS) announced its partnership with DHL Airways Incorporated, the world’s leading air express service. They will work together to allow the Postal Service to offer customers the ability to send two-day letters to Western Europe. The USPS will finally catch up to private package carriers, such as Federal Express and the United Parcel Service. Previously, there was no guarantee to deliver parcels to Europe in a given time frame due to the fact that the USPS had to hand off the letters to foreign postal administrations. They will accomplish this by using DHL’s European delivery network and existing package tracking system.

The system begins by the USPS scanning the packages into its package-tracking database, it then ships them to New York’s John F. Kennedy airport where DHL re-scans the USPS bar codes and adds bar codes suitable for its Easy Ship tracking system. The DHL then delivers the packages to Europe. The Easy Ship system updates the Postal Service database via electronic data interchange, which enhances the speed and efficiency in shipping, billing and data management. Post office customers can access package delivery information via phone or web within thirty minutes of each scan. The DHL Package Tracking System provides in-transit delivery information, electronic signature capture, and quick availability of information.

Future goals of the US Postal Service are the desire to integrate these systems into one data system and they may eventually expand to twenty or more cities, including the Pacific Rim. This service will go live on April 12^th serving Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington. Concurrently, they are working on a secured Internet service that will guarantee the integrity of Internet mail and verify the identities of all communicating parties.

Bibliography

Deck, Stewart, Computerworld, "Databases to Coordinate DHL/Postal ServiceDelivery", March 15, 1999, page 46.

Deck, Stewart, Computerworld-Online News (http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9903055usps), "Post Office has New Service to Europe", March 5, 1999.

Larsen, Amy K. InformationWeek(http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi), March 22, 1999, Issue: 726. DHL:Corporate-News (http://www.dhl.com/info/news/html)