Ukrainian postal service Ukrposhta to automate 100% of sorting terminals by mid-2024
MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax) - Ukrainian national postal service Ukrposhta has completed the installation of automated sorting lines at the Kiev-Right logistical terminal and plans to automate 100% of its logistical facilities by the middle of 2024 to drop manual sorting and boost the productivity and quality of sorting operations eightfold, Ukrainian media have reported with reference to the company's press service.
"Ukrposhta has completed the installation of automated sorting lines at the Kiev-Right logistical terminal. The new equipment for sorting international, small- and large-size postal items at this terminal is capable of processing 18,000 parcels an hour and about 400,000 postal items a day," Ukrposhta said in a statement on Thursday.
The terminal operates three automated sorting lines for international, small-size, and large-size items. The pay of the terminal's workers has been more than doubled after the new equipment was made operational, it said.
Ukrposhta is expected to complete the transformation of its logistical network in 1H 2024.
The process implies automating 100% of the company's sorting facilities by installing automated lines at six sorting terminals in Odessa, Kiev (Kiev-Left), Dnepr, Lvov, Kharkov, and Khmelnitsky. Another 14-16 logistical centers of Ukrposhta in other regional centers and large cities across the country will be equipped with automated sorting lines of a smaller capacity to sort parcels and small-size packages, which would make it possible to do away with manual sorting.
After the logistical network's upgrade is completed, its aggregate capacity would reach up to 2 million postal items a day, it said.
The innovative logistical terminal Kiev-Left is to be unveiled in the second quarter of 2024. It will begin processing international items and will be equipped with additional automated lines to sort letters and newspapers by the end of the year.
"In 2023, Ukrposhta increased the number of postal items [processed] by 40% [...] The new equipment will increase our productivity and sorting quality eightfold," Ukrposhta quoted its CEO Igor Smelyansky as saying.
The upgrade of Ukrposhta's logistical network should increase the speed of deliveries among regional centers and large cities at the first stage and between other cities and villages at later stages.
The next step in Ukrposhta's transformation is automating the sorting of letters and newspapers and the batching of orders containing medications. Apart from this, Ukrposhta plans to reset its key services and processes in 2024 to digitalize them as much as possible.
Ukrposhta is installing conveyor equipment developed by the domestic manufacturer, Ukrainian Intellectual Systems.
UIS Tilt Tray Sorter is a sorting machine developed by Ukrainian engineers. It has its own Oracle-based software, and over 90% of its components are manufactured at ten various Ukrainian industrial facilities.