Every day 150,000 parcels are transported by the French DPD group, which amounts to nearly 55 million parcels per year. DPD France is part of La Poste Groupe. The timely transport of the parcel volumes, which are handled in the depots day by day, requires a high level of organization and a precise monitoring of all processes in order to be able to ascertain where a shipment is currently located.

E-commerce is growing the parcel business and, consequently, the transportation volume of parcel service and logistics companies. Online shopping would be unthinkable for the consumers without the speedy delivery of the ordered goods – therefore it is self-evident to keep track of shipments on their way to the consignee, in order to guarantee a correct delivery. The company operates numerous logistics depots, in which the consignments are collected, sorted and reloaded according to their destination. In order to cope with the high volume of shipments, the depots are equipped with state-of-the-art technology such as conveyor belt systems and scanner terminals, which allow the tracking of the route any shipment takes within the facility.
DPD France has been using video systems for some time, which monitor the processes inside the depots. However, these were mostly analog systems, and were to be replaced by modern IP-based video solutions that would provide extended search options to track parcels as quickly as possible. The detailed and reliable dispatch tracking, as well as the surveillance of the depots to resolve cases of loss and to optimize the processes, were therefore set as project targets. The challenge of the project was also to secure the depots in compliance with TAPA - which mainly means monitoring all entrance and exit gates for at least 17 hours a day as well as motion-based image recording outside this period.

Software In Control
With the Cayuga product line, SeeTec offers a powerful and flexibly extendable video management software that has been supplemented by the company‘s BVI Logistics module with a scanner interface for the DPD depots in France. In addition, I/O modules are used in both depots to enable the transmission and reception of control signals so that, among other things, doors and gates can be opened directly by pushing a button in the user interface. The expandability of the SeeTec Multi Solution Platform allows new components to be added at any time – for example, to automatically capture and analyze the license plates of incoming vehicles.
The video management software supports a large number of different camera makes and models. Now all the conveyor belts, entrance and exit doors as well as the entire interior zone are being monitored with 280 HD cameras in Tours and 380 in Beaune. The complete process of shipment processing from incoming parcels via sorting by destination through to handover to the delivery agent is seamlessly documented. The data from the video system is combined with the data from the various barcode scanners along the conveyor belts for detailed evaluation. It is therefore possible to determine at what time each individual parcel was located at which point in the distribution centre.

Seamless Journey
The installation of 61 scanners from the manufacturer Sick ensures the monitoring of the conveyor belts, and these export the barcodes from five viewing angles. Each parcel is tracked in the warehouse management system, assigned to the correct destination and forwarded to the right conveyor belt, which transports it to the appropriate loading bay. In the SeeTec user interface, a research view can be used to search for parcels using different parameters such as barcode or the tracking number. The software visualizes the route of the shipment through the distribution center on the basis of video recordings, so that the user can compare all available data and can localize error sources quickly. Thanks to these options the clarification of damage or loss can be significantly accelerated.