The new partnership with Wiliot involves tagging Royal Mail’s 850,000 roll containers, known as Yorks, with high-tech stickers that are about the same size as new QR code postage stamps.
The tags, called IoT Pixels, contain “tiny computers” and are automatically detected by nearby Bluetooth devices.
The Wiliot system uses ambient technology, such that the tags are powered using surrounding radio waves and can provide “constant feedback to a cloud and AI-based data platform”.
This results in a live digital map of each York’s journey and whereabouts as the containers travel around the Royal Mail network.
Nathan Preston, Royal Mail tech director for strategy, innovation and data, said the business was excited to be the first postal company in the world to use the technology.
“It has huge potential, from increasing reliability by allowing us to quickly spot and address any issues in the network, to reducing our carbon footprint by helping us to better fill our vehicles to avoid wasted journeys,” he said.
Optimising the use of vehicles in this way could potentially saving millions of litres of fuel annually, Preston noted.
“Combining Wiliot data with other sources, we can more efficiently monitor the items in our network, without the need for any additional manual scanning,” he added.
This also includes ensuring all parcels have a container ready for them.
The Wiliot technology is also being used in grocery supply chains, including real-time location and temperature data for perishable goods management.
It can also be used for Digital Product Passports, where it becomes a tool for monitoring product life cycles encompassing provenance, authenticity, sustainability and circularity.
Wiliot CEO Tal Tamir commented: “Royal Mail’s heritage is well established and very rich. The significance of being central to its digital transformation mission is not lost on us.
“Through our platform, we’re able to provide complete visibility across the supply chain, giving organisations young and old the tools they need to deliver faster, safer and more environmentally sustainable services and solutions.”
Royal Mail COO Alistair Cochrane said the tech would bring many benefits to the group.
“There’ll be no assumptions or manual checks required anymore. We’ll have visibility of both an individual item and the entire network flow,” he said.
“We can now focus in on minimising disruption and ensuring the most accurate, on-time deliveries. Better for our people, and better for our customers.”
Future plans include tagging individual parcels, so that, for example, Royal Mail could work with healthcare providers to send medicines that need to be kept at a certain temperature.
Royal Mail said that it would soon know exactly which parcel is in which container, and will be able to calculate the CO2 emissions for each parcel’s journey.
Royal Mail delivered around 6.7bn letters and 1.12bn domestic parcels in its most recent financial year.
It is owned by International Distribution Services PLC, currently the focus of a potential £3.6bn takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský that has been called in for government review under the National Security and Investment Act.
Investors in Israel-headquartered Wiliot include Amazon, Maersk, Avery Dennison, Samsung and Pepsico.
The firm has field offices in the USA, Australia, Portugal and in London.
