More an more newsagents are eliminating paper from their businesses by using devices such as the iPhone, Android based phones and even Apple’s iPad for tasks which would previously have been done using paper. The Samsung phone in the photo is being used as an electronic newspaper home delivery run list. This list is generated by newsagency software and dropped onto the phone in a matter of seconds.
I know of some newsagencies which have eliminated up to fifty pages of printing a day by providing access to delivery runlists to drivers electronically.
This is a good green story for the newsagency channel. Add to it the move away from paper printed monthly accounts to electronic accounts sent by email and the viewing of newsagency management reports electronically rather than in print and you can see smart businesses cutting printing costs, cutting carbon emissions and reducing paper usage.
Now if only we could reduce paper wastage from magazine returns.
i use a PSP (play station portable) with tower software and it is great. not only are we saving on paper, the screen is backlit and our drivers dont need to drive with the interior light on in the car, and that is a hell of alot safer. it scrolls down easy.
I am writing my own software for the Android at the moment. However, after over 10 years working in transport industry that wrote/supported PDA applications for drivers, I am not sure how the “older” and experienced drivers will take the invasion technology into their work. Technology is great but make sure the right approach is used. I have plenty of stories of the backlashes from drivers using PDAs or smart phones to do the deliveries. I might document those stories on my blogs one of these days.
However, I would agree with Mark’s comment on the issue of reducing paper usage (equate to more money in your product). A couple of weeks ago, I did wrote a piece on another example of reduction by using electronic faxes instead of having a physical fax machine in your shop. You check read that on one of my blog sites.
I don’t understand why you have to print the list each day. We use the preprinted run book with each page in a sheet protector. We apply the re-usable electrical tape to cover the stops and leave some space for each street for new additions. the same book has lasted more than ten years now.
Ditto. But now use the more hi-tech zippered plastic pouches…
One can work ‘greenly’ without all the batteries, gadgets and un-green componentry, you know.
😀
Y&G: what is the benefit with the pouches?
regular drivers remember the run by heart and you only need a quick glance over the book to see if there is any black tape to know which house has stopped. The idea is to know which house does NOT have the paper, not which one does.
i print a run list everyday, and i still think i use less paper than the phone recharge receipts chew thru everyday
Because we have blow-ins who stuff it all up on a whim.
… That is, casuals who pop up now and then, and then never be seen again. Adding and deleting is a pain, so we do it this way with a flag-tag which is removed when that person’s flown off from whence they blew.
The pouches, for similar reasons to you, Han. But because there’s two of us, we each have our own half of the run on our sheets. Instead of carrying a book around every day, we just have ‘that day’.
Thre is no requirement to print run lists every day. Some newsagents need to because of customer changes others for the use of drivers who are not on every day.
@Han & @Y&G, could tell me how many deliveries you do using this system. I just wonder if you can use the same system if the home distributions run in the order of 800+ papers per day plus subagents of 300+ papers per day.
Coming from transport & logistics industry, our clients want to know a pickup/delivery is done. Fairfax are tracking drivers on a map via GPS at the moment (I wrote the system for one of their contractors in Sydney). Similar, there would be added value in seeing where the drivers are at that moment in time when a customer calls up to find out if the papers are late or where are their papers? If the system is real-time system then you can see if a paper is delivered and also if you can see if there’s a problem with one of your drivers (even if you trust your drivers). I see such requirements in the newsagency industry – but not to the same level as in the T&L industry. Therefore, apart from saving paper (tree), PDAs and Smart Phones have other added value services to your customers.
robert
we deliver about 700 papers on week day and 900 on weekend, seems to work fine for us. but we are a family business, the drivers are me and my father in law
Robert, you would have guessed by now that we’re probably the smallest run in the country!
However, Han’s system probably would work well with the numbers you’re talking. All it would take would be to change the info on the computer in the first place. There would be no need at all to reprint anything except for the casual customers, which could still be flagged to the side, or similar, anyway.
the system that some are talking about here (paper in plastic sleves) was in use here when i bought my newsagency….
putting the run onto a PSP each night is far better and more importantly, more accurate.
if a customer comes in or phones up to stop for the weekend, all the girl at the counter does is put the stop and the start in, so that the billing is suspended, and it will not show up on the list, and she doesnt have to find the customer on the run and black them out…. one step. and it is done.
i think a PSP is the cheapest option ($300) but if you have a blackberry or iPhone, you already have the hardware.
there is also the very important issue of being able to drive without the interior light on when its dark ourside.
If paper usage is an issue and drivers already know the run, why not just print the Stops/Starts list?