The lack of proper consignment management between posts and airlines causes delays in the air transportation of mail, undermining the performance of one of the key processes of an end-to-end e-commerce service offering. To address this issue, posts need to optimise both their capacity planning procedures and their measurement and monitoring tools.

How does it work?

IPC worked with postal operators and airlines to develop solutions which address business processes related to airmail that had to be optimised, in particular consignment planning and monitoring. Solutions include the IPC Consignment Monitoring tools and Airmail Transport Planning.

The consignment performance of airmail is achieved by using several available IPC reporting tools:

  • The IPC Dashboard and Action Plan provides high-level analysis and action plan deployment capabilities, giving an overview of the KPIs that are critical for proper performance monitoring.
  • The IPC Consignment Monitoring Tool allows for more detailed analysis, by focusing on specific destinations or transiting hubs and by providing per receptacle detail on performance.
  • Lastly, CAPE provides additional reporting capabilities, by allowing the analysis at EDI message level.

To access our tools, click here.

Benefits

  • Access to customised reports that use available data based on EDI exchanges
  • Provide visibility over the performance of airmail carriage
  • Enhance performance of cross-border transport

About IPC Consignment Monitoring Tools

IPC Dashboard and Action Plan

The IPC Dashboard and Action Plan provides visibility over selected critical KPIs that need to be closely monitored in order for posts and carriers to provide a reliable service. By focusing on several dashboards, as well as by providing improvement action plans and following up on them, posts and airlines jointly tackle the key operational and messaging issues that undermine their performance. The information about the Dashboard is available to each airline and post with their own KPIs, but any other stakeholder can have access to the data and action plan input from others, in order to benchmark on best practice and apply standard solutions that can benefit the industry as a whole.

The IPC Dashboard and Action Plan focuses on three main areas:

  • Consignment Performance: the overall on-time performance is tracked here, and the worst performing links are also displayed in order to trigger focused action plans by the users.
  • Visibility: several KPIs relating to the quality and completeness of the EDI messages exchanged are monitored. Action plans are required to improve these KPIs to provide better visibility over the operational issues and root causes of delays.
  • Processing Efficiency: the third main KPI groups additional indicators that relate to process optimisation and enhanced quality. The users need to provide proposals of actions that will help them improve each of the KPIs displayed. The progress of the KPIs versus the expected quality results can also be monitored through the Dashboard.

The users need to provide proposals of actions that will help them improve each of the KPIs displayed. The progress of the KPIs versus the expected quality results can also be monitored through the Dashboard.

Consignment Monitoring tool

The Consignment Monitoring Tool allows for the detailed analysis of performance and operational issues, The Tool offers multiple views and possibilities to drill down to different levels of detail. From an overall monthly view, the user can decide to view detailed data from several perspectives. Note that from each of the views below one can access detailed receptacle level view:

  • Tail view: it allows the user to monitor the so called “performance tail” (i.e. the number of days it takes to reach a certain level of performance, based on the expectation expressed by the post through EDI messages). Such KPIs are the key to achieve a reliable service level. The shorter the “tail” the more reliable the service is.
  • Hub view: here the reports focus on the quality of the operations for consignments that are processed in multi-leg routes, i.e. transiting via intermediate airports before reaching its destination. The user can therefore determine the best combination of hubs or transit airports based on the performance they provide.
  • Weekday view: a per-weekday analysis of the performance, allowing the user to detect trends based on operational specificities of the different days of the week.
  • Service Performance view: several dashboards provide detailed analysis of the on time performance and tail, all in a graphic view that allows for a quick understanding of the main issues at a glance.

CAPE 

CAPE provides a number of reports that focus on transport performance. In CAPE, the user can find the deepest levels of detail for analysis, including the possibility to view full tracking of receptacles and raw EDI messages. The use of CAPE may be needed to complete the monitoring levels provided by the other reporting tools on Consignment Monitoring.

Several of the above features are also available for airlines, by adapting the views to their specific needs of performance monitoring. By accessing these reports the airlines can share a common view on the KPIs and work with posts in implementing suitable action plans to improve them. For more information on CAPE, please refer to the CAPE page.

More information

For more information about consignment monitoring contact [email protected].

Download our leaflet

Consignment Monitoring User Guide

Download the Consignment Monitoring User Gude here (Participants only)

EDI

Want to know more about EDI? Click here

Engage

Click here for more information about the Engage initiative (formerly called FoMbA)

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