LOGISTICS PLATFORM

Modernising national logistics through automation

INDUSTRY

Logistics

ROLE

UX Designer

EXPERTISE

UX/UI Design

YEAR

2012

The Problem

Every delivery office across Royal Mail used a physical whiteboard to manually plan and assign delivery and collection routes — a time-consuming, error-prone process prone to bottlenecks and last-minute changes. Communication with field personnel relied on personal phones, with no visibility across office operations.

Key issues:

• No centralised view of routes or staff capacity

• Manual matching of operators to routes based on skill/availability

• Disconnected communication with field personnel

• No digital audit trail or reporting

Discovery & Research

To ensure we built a tool that would genuinely improve workflows, I led a discovery phase involving site visits, interviews, and process shadowing across multiple delivery offices:

💬
Shadowing Delivery Coordinators

I spent time with office managers during morning planning sessions to observe how they used their whiteboards. These sessions revealed that nearly all assignment decisions were held in people’s heads, with limited written records. Skills, shift lengths, and route complexities were remembered informally or jotted down inconsistently. Updates due to sickness or breakdowns required chain-calling several staff, adding to the time burden.

📌
Whiteboard Mapping Workshops

We ran interactive workshops where teams mapped out how they used whiteboards, what information they tracked, and how they reacted to changes. This helped us understand the hierarchy of decision-making and the mental models used to assign routes — things like “Emma’s always on GL5-D03 because she knows that hill” or “if someone’s on bike, don’t give them over 180 minutes.”

🧩
Key Insight: No Real-Time Visibility

One of the most surprising insights was how little real-time visibility staff had once a shift began. Once delivery personnel were out on the road, there was no consistent way to reach them unless you had their personal phone number. Breakdowns, missed parcels, or emergencies were often handled via multiple, inefficient calls. There was also no central record of route assignments once the whiteboard was wiped clean at the end of the day.

🧠
Mental Load + Manual Effort
= Burnout

Perhaps the strongest finding was the cumulative strain on coordinators. Matching people to routes manually every day — factoring in training, shift type, duration, and transport method — led to visible stress, especially during busy periods or unexpected absences. Everyone we spoke to wanted a system that could handle the logic, but still allow for manual overrides when needed.

Solution

We built RemoteMate, a fully automated logistics platform for assigning delivery routes, managing staff, and enabling live communication across the network.

Key features:

Workforce Management

Store personnel profiles, shift times, skills (bike, van, foot), and route training.

Route Admin

Capture route details (code, name, duration, format, priority), with filtering and search.

Duty Assignment

Automatically match operators to routes based on availability and skills.

Messenger

Real-time chat with field personnel, integrated with new postal digital assistant devices (no personal phone needed).

Display Board Mode

Replaces the whiteboard with a live, auto-updating screen shown in every office.

Highlight 1
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 2
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 3
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 4
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 1
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 2
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 3
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 4
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 1
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 2
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 3
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 4
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 1
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 2
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
Highlight 3
Manage your bookings easily with built-in booking widget.
Highlight 4
Show the best parts of your locations with style.

DUTY ASSIGNMENT BOARD
Simple drag-and-drop interface or use the auto-assign feature to instantly match staff to routes by skill, shift, and availability.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
MESSENGER INTERFACE
A built-in chat feature to replace informal phone chains. Coordinators can communicate directly with any operator in the field via their issued devices.
ROUTE ADMINISTRATION
Define route waypoints, formats, durations, and warnings — with optional A4 printouts for on-the-go reference.
DUTY ASSIGNMENT BOARD
Simple drag-and-drop interface or use the auto-assign feature to instantly match staff to routes by skill, shift, and availability.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
MESSENGER INTERFACE
A built-in chat feature to replace informal phone chains. Coordinators can communicate directly with any operator in the field via their issued devices.
ROUTE ADMINISTRATION
Define route waypoints, formats, durations, and warnings — with optional A4 printouts for on-the-go reference.
DUTY ASSIGNMENT BOARD
Simple drag-and-drop interface or use the auto-assign feature to instantly match staff to routes by skill, shift, and availability.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
MESSENGER INTERFACE
A built-in chat feature to replace informal phone chains. Coordinators can communicate directly with any operator in the field via their issued devices.
ROUTE ADMINISTRATION
Define route waypoints, formats, durations, and warnings — with optional A4 printouts for on-the-go reference.
DUTY ASSIGNMENT BOARD
Simple drag-and-drop interface or use the auto-assign feature to instantly match staff to routes by skill, shift, and availability.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT
Show the best parts of your locations with style.
MESSENGER INTERFACE
A built-in chat feature to replace informal phone chains. Coordinators can communicate directly with any operator in the field via their issued devices.
ROUTE ADMINISTRATION
Define route waypoints, formats, durations, and warnings — with optional A4 printouts for on-the-go reference.

Results

After a successful 12 week pilot across 3 delivery offices, RemoteMate was deployed in over 80 offices nationally across a 8 month period, positively impacting over 2,800 postal operators…

Time saved

Reduced daily planning by over 40%

Compliance

Failure to cover all planned routes reduced by over 85%

Accuracy

100% alignment of routes to skilled staff

Visibility

Both local coordinators and regional management have full oversight of staff and route coverage

Adoption

All offices requested access within 2 weeks of the pilot launch!

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