DreamBOX Parcel Tracking System Success

A live demonstration of Magneto's prototype internet based job-list / parcel tracking system was made today at EM-Media's offices in Nottingham.

A parcel job request, pickup, in-transit tracking and delivery was demonstrated as follows:

1. The audience was invited to choose several items from a list of household and food items; these items were to act as parcels for the purpose of this test (each item has a barcode). A member of the audience was also asked to act as the recipient of the parcels – and to be willing to sign for them on their arrival.

2. The despatcher entered two parcel pick up and delivery jobs into the system using the Web-Based Despatcher Terminal. Additional information was input into the system to inform the roving driver which household items to pick up and deliver, and who the recipient was.

3. The despatcher used the Despatcher Terminal to view the current position of the drivers and determine which of the drivers was best suited to carry out the jobs based on their current location and workload.

4. The despatcher assigned the jobs to the 2 drivers (Andrew and Jef) via the Despatcher Terminal.

5. The system sent the jobs to the chosen driver’s PDAs via the internet and GPRS data link.

6. Both drivers then received a “new job alert” on their PDA. The alert included details of the pickup location, the delivery location, the number of parcels, the recipient and what items to pick up.

7. Each driver accepted their assigned job via a button on the PDA user interface: a confirmation message was sent back to the internet server. The audience was able to see the driver’s PDA screen for the local driver and the job-status change to “accepted” on the despatcher terminal for each of the 2 drivers in turn.

8. As the roving driver moved to his pickup point the audience was able to see his position move in real-time on a map of Nottingham City Center. His position dot moved closer and closer to the pickup location (The Iceland supermarket, just off the Market Square).

9. The roving driver picked up the parcels as instructed. He scanned them in using the barcode reader. When the correct number of parcels were scanned in a status message was sent to the Despatcher Terminal. The audience saw the status of the job change to “picked up”.

10. As the roving driver moved away from his pickup point the audience was able to see his position move in real-time on the map of Nottingham City Center. His position dot moved closer and closer until he arrived at the demonstration venue with the requested parcels.

11. The driver arrived in the room and asked for the person the delivery was for. He scanned the parcels out of the van using the barcode reader. One parcel that was not part of this consignment was scanned –the driver’s PDA beeped and informed the driver that this parcel was not part of this delivery. When all the parcels were scanned correctly (i.e. we have the correct parcels, and the correct number of parcels) the signature capture screen was shown. The receiving customer was asked to sign for the delivery on the driver’s PDA touch-screen. This signature was then sent as proof-of-delivery (POD) to the despatcher terminal, and appeared on the terminal screen.

12. The job was then moved from the joblist page to the completed jobs page on the driver’s PDA.

13. The parcel pickup, tracking and delivery process is now complete.

The demonstration was a success with all the technology working together as intended. The audience was very impressed with the real-time tracking of the driver’s position on the map and amazed when the signature just scribbled on the drivers PDA appeared on the projected despatcher terminal.

See here for further details.