Image Capture and Photographs

They say that a picture can be worth a thousand words and in logistics this is often true. In our case a picture is often use to prove something or show somebody something in such a way that it avoids any argument.

Could Not Deliver

A classic situation is where you try to deliver something to an address and find that they are not in. We all know that sometimes people will claim that they are in and you have to persuade them that you did try to deliver. This is even more likely to be the case if there is an extra charge for redelivery or the receiver does not want to collect it from you.

DeliveryPoD allows you to take a photograph of their doorstep with Mobile Computers that feature an inbuilt camera or imager. The photograph is time and date stamped and posted to the web site (with any text entered by the driver) so people can see you did try to deliver. This will quite often stop someone even questioning whether or not you tried.

This is part of the report on the Consignment that is shown on the web site. Shippers can also download a list of all the consignments that could not be delivered along with the accompanying photographs.

More and more mobile computers have integrated imagers or cameras. Some of these no allow you to take colour photographs - although you need to consider the cost implications of sending a colour (as opposed to black and white) image over a GPRS / 3G network.

Damage

In a similar manner, you can photograph any damage to an item, both in transit or when you collect it (to avoid false compensation claims). This along with any text entry is sent to the web site so people can see the damage. The damage can be seen on the web site or the shipping company can see a list of all the items with damage in a single report.