Parcelforce puts Web-based tracking through its paces

Parcelforce customers will be able to use the Net to track their packages around the globe if trials of an Intranet system prove successful.

The company demonstrated the Intranet-based system last week, along with its parcel management system (PMS) which is the current system used for parcel tracking.

"The Intranet will replace the enquiry component of PMS, but that is all," claimed Tony Macnamara, strategic systems manager at Parcelforce business systems.

The PMS system, of which various components have been introduced in phases over the past couple of years, allows full tracking of parcels through Parcelforce's international network. Customers can also access parcel information using Parcelforce's national enquiry centre by phone or email.

The Intranet system fronts PMS and older legacy systems. "In the depots, it will sit on the Lan to give immediate access to parcel enquiries," said Matt Dixon, international systems manager at Parcelforce Worldwide.

"We are still trying to get the system together; if it is successful we will take it to our external Web site, so that customers can enter the parcel's identity and off it goes to interrogate the parcel-tracking database," he said.

"The trial is up and running at the national enquiry centre," said Macnamara. "It will run to the end of June by which time we will have ironed out the wrinkles. A huge number of people are already using the system in live enquiries - and most are biting off our hands because it is what they have been waiting for," he said.