Tracking Mail Delivery with BlackBerry and Baracoda

By  Jeff Goldman
The Italian private postal service company Defendini uses 200 BlackBerry devices (BlackBerry Curve 8300s and 8310s) to help its mail carriers confirm and track deliveries -- and within the next year, the company plans to add another 200 BlackBerry devices to the deployment.

In addition to BlackBerry smartphones, the company's mail carriers are provided with Baracoda RoadRunner data matrix bar code readers to scan postal mail and packages (as well as a code indicating the type of delivery) in order to confirm delivery time and location.

"They must read the data matrix code at the moment of delivery... at the final destination," explains company manager Giuseppe Dezzani.

The delivery confirmation data is then sent to the company's back-end SQL database using a custom-built Blackberry application, which also allows the mail carrier to note any problems with delivery, such as a wrong address or a change of address.

Dezzani developed the application in collaboration with Italian IT company Newmann S.R.L. -- the development process, he says, was very straightforward. "The [only] problem was the synchronization with official time -- because we need the certification of the delivery time," he says.

In addition to providing the company itself with real time tracking information, the system also allows Defendini's customers to monitor all data related to the delivery of their mail and packages in real time at the company's web site -- at this point, Dezzani says, Defendini is the only Italian postal service provider that offers this kind of real time tracking to its customers.

"A customer that [sends] mail by Defendini can see, step by step, the evolution of delivery," Dezzani says.

Prior to the deployment of the BlackBerry and Baracoda solution, Dezzani says, Defendini's system was far more rudimentary. "We used pencil and paper," he says.

That meant that, at the end of each day, the mail carrier had to copy all delivery information manually into the company's database -- and the company's customers weren't able to view any tracking data online. "We used the information only for internal use," Dezzani says.

European postal services are currently undergoing deregulation, with the aim of allowing private companies like Defendini to deliver any and all postal mail and packages by 2011. In the meantime, Defendini is limited to carrying letters and packages weighing more than 50 grams.