Wireless technology in postal supply chains

The greatest challenge in postal e-business is linking emerging technology to a company's new business strategy and design. Today, more than ever, posts need the right technology to support and improve their effectiveness when making major strategic moves in transformation as well as in everyday operations concerning planning and execution in supply chain management (SCM). A variety of technological and process innovations have allowed simultaneous improvements to a number of steps in the integrated supply chains. Predicting what new capabilities technology will provide will be a key to winning supply chain management in postal business in the next years. Business of the future will be mobile, integrated, and personal. With the widespread rollout of a wireless infrastructure, a new wave of consumer and business applications will begin using airwaves for much more than just phone calls [1]. This paper deals with some representative wireless solutions in supply chain integration, developed to answer on the major SCM trends - lower costs (reduced inventory, increased productivity), increased velocity (shorter and more frequent time-to-market and time-to-delivery times), increased process visibility, multichannel service integration, seamless consumer-friendly fulfillment, and introduction of more innovative and competitive postal services.