The Company
Purolator
Courier Ltd. of Mississauga, Ontario is Canada's leading
overnight courier company. From automated solutions to
24 hour pick up and delivery, Purolator provides customers
with the services and customized solutions required to
get their shipments across town or around the world.
Purolator operates Canada's largest dedicated air express
fleet. Purolator has an extensive service network, with
over 13,000 employees, including more than 4,000 couriers,
over 140 operations locations, over 170 Shipping Centres,
over 490 Authorized Shipping Agents and more than 480
drop boxes. Purolator processes over 5.5 million pieces
(delivery and pick up) each week for destinations across
Canada and around the world. www.purolator.com.
The Challenge
Construct data architecture to be the foundation for all
new enterprise systems. Replace outdated, unsupported IT
systems and paper-based processes to better position the
company against its competition. Fully automate the call
centre and dispatch centre operations, then integrate other
key functions-customer accounting, customer service, and
quality assurance.
The Solution
Caro was initially engaged by Purolator to construct a data
architecture as the foundation for all new enterprise systems.
This project was successfully completed and delivered in
a very aggressive time frame. Following that project, we
re-engineered many systems from a mainframe environment
to a distributed client-server environment.
Working as a team, Caro and Purolator designed and built
integrated Call Centre and Dispatch applications. These
two applications were delivered in seven months—five
months ahead of schedule. These applications are used by
approximately 600 agents in three Call Centres and four
Dispatch centres throughout Canada. A call can be automatically
dispatched to a courier via a country-wide paging network
within seconds of being accepted, while at the same time
notifying dispatching personnel who can monitor and control
progress from anywhere within the network. These highly
integrated applications use an instantly re-configurable
routing database and have dramatically improved the company’s
operations and level of customer service.
The Call Centre and Dispatch applications were implemented
in tandem with two other apps: Service Directory, which
controls the complex organization of the company, its network
of terminals and service points; and Security, which is
a fully functional global security administration and control
system with local administration capabilities.
A fifth application, Tracking and Tracing, for the tracking
and tracing of packages, was implemented into production
in the same year. This application is integrated with the
others, using many common components. It includes a sophisticated
task management system which enables the call centre representatives
to easily control their tasks and rapidly respond to customer
inquiries.
Also implemented was the Contract and Pricing Administration
application, which handles the complex shipping contracts
of Purolator’s larger customers. This system will
make the negotiation and renewal of contracts much simpler
for the business community and allow many new features
to expand the possibilities of contractual agreements in
the future.
The Technology
The applications were developed using Caro’s application
components and methodology Assemble and the Sun ONE Unified
Development Server (UDS).
The Business Benefits Realized
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Reduced development time and costs |
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Reduced labour hours |
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Higher level of CSR productivity |
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Increased cross functional field
communications |
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Increased customer service levels |
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Highly competitive solution |
Learn more, download the
PDF brochure |