Innovative technologies and products win at Post-Expo 2017
Innovation was the big winner at last week’s Post-Expo in Geneva as suppliers and other exhibitors showcased a diverse range of award-winning new technologies, products and services.
More than 3,500 visitors from 100 countries travelled to the Swiss city for the three-day exhibition and several parallel conferences.
The exhibition hall was once again filled with a mix of well-established international suppliers such as Beumer, Escher Group, Honeywell, Keba, Neopost, Pitney Bowes, Siemens, Solystic and Vanderlande along with a wide range of other providers of diverse postal and CEP industry products and services, including automated systems, software, transportation & delivery services, and vehicles.
One new exhibitor was Parcel Kiosk, a joint solution from Welltec, Hefter and LetMeShip (the sister company of CEP-Research which also exhibited at the show). The ParcelKiosk combines all dispatch processing functions in one device with hardware and software, including scanner, software and the LetMeShip shipping solution.
Meanwhile, Swiss Post and Parcel Vision picked up the top two awards at the Postal and Parcel Technology International awards held at Post-Expo.
Swiss Post was named Service Provider of the Year for its broad and ambitious range of technology projects and strong financial performance. These included innovations such as car boot deliveries, drone transportation trials and new consumer apps.
Prime Vision triumphed in the Supplier of the Year category with its many R&D projects and trials, including robotic sorting systems and packaging that integrates printed electronics. The Dutch firm also gained the Sorting Center Innovation of the Year award for a parcel scanning device to support manual sorting, which was developed in partnership with PostNL.
Delivery Innovation of the Year went to DPD Germany for its returns button. The German parcel company has launched a smartphone app which simplifies the return of e-commerce goods to just a single tap of a smartphone.
SingPost won the Digital Innovation of the Year award for its kiosks and digital postal services. Singpost has installed 300 kiosks and launched a website and smartphone application to offer customers fast and convenient access to postal services, from purchasing stamps to weighing parcels and financial transactions.
Environmental Achievement of the Year went to Fit Things, a Dutch start-up that has developed an office printer-sized machine called Slimbox that produces custom-sized packaging to be used by smaller e-commerce firms.
New Business Diversification of the Year was won by An Post, DB Schenker and Proximity. The three organizations’ new Post Logistics services is a pallet collection and delivery service that makes it easier for Irish companies to export to the rest of Europe.
POST-EXPO 2018 will be held on October 9-11, in Hamburg, Germany.
