The traditional method of uniquely identifying parcels and letters has been to use an "in-house" numbering system. Even when an international standard exists (such as EMS) delivery countries invariably overlabel and correlate to their own system. For returned or undelivered international items you end up with a plethora of barcode numbers for the same parcel. The theory is that the "daisy chained" identifiers will provide a tracking history - but the reality is that the chain is often broken. These parcels are usually referred to as "Christmas Trees" because of the amount of useless barcode decoration.
A practical solution to this problem is to use an ISO Licence Plate identifier within the Barcode or RFID tag being used to identify the letter or parcel. Such a Licence Plate by definition is globally unique. The system is regulated by a system of "issuing agencies" authorised to to create and use identifiers under the overall control of ISO which is the overall global standards agency.
With a truely unique identifier there is no longer any need to correlate or over-label at the edge. Some European Postal Administrations already use such a license plate for their domestic parcel systems and the RFID tags used by the UPU Global Monitoring System are also uniquely identified by this system.
This should not be seen just as an operational/technical issue as ISO License Plate Identifiers are now being mandated in other industries. The Defence industry has an identification mandate called UID which is being used by the DoD and is being adopted by other NATO countries. UID is based on exactly the same ISO License Plate standard as the Postal Industry. The NATO supply chain represents one of the largest opportunities for the Express Parcel industry. So there are some really significant commercial imperatives for adopting an open ISO licence plate approach.
Every piece of "parcel and mail" sortation equipment in our industry uses some form of item identification technology. Why not adopt an "open standard" and use the information to optimise our networks and inform our customers.
The business idea is really simple but I do appreciate that industry CEOs might need some help to understands the concept and the issues. If you would like to find out some more information on this subject - I have put a discussion group on Linkedin and also plan to run some Webinars.
