Pickup, delivery, scan
A last-mile station system has to carry scan volume at the morning and evening peaks. Pickup, inbound, sort, delivery, sign-off, and problem parcels—one second slow on any hop and the linehaul misses. We walk early sort and evening delivery: how the gun is used, how chutes split, how PUDO hands off, how refusals and second attempts are recorded. The UI must work one-handed, scan-and-go, with a cache on a weak network. Extra features with a laggy scan send the floor back to the old gun HQ issued, and the new system is not live.
Problem parcels
Unclear address, dead phone, damaged wrap, weight mismatch—handling clocks and fees need rules. Held inventory must be visible, not piled in a corner until a complaint. PUDO, lockers, and doorstep share one delivery task, and sign-off state posts upstream. Settlement matches piece count, weight, waybill, and delivery fee so the station owner can see whether today made money—not a HQ deduction at month-end.
Productivity and holds
Productivity is pieces per person and holds, not login count: who picked up, who delivered, who owns the most problems, by person. If zones and roster live only in the manager’s head, peak will miss deliveries. We bind zones to tasks and warn on unsigned timeouts. Waybill stock, top-ups, and e-waybill accounts are managed too—being unable to print is worse than an ugly report.
Weight and bags
Weight/volume mismatch, duplicate waybills, and bags in the wrong chute are how HQ docks a station. Weigh and reweigh sit in the scan path so a difference is visible on the floor. COD and collect-on-delivery bind to the piece, not a side notebook. Zone changes and extra peak staff must reassign tasks so unsigned pieces do not vanish with a person. When a complaint call comes in, the manager opens the waybill and sees who scanned last, and where.
Avoid peak cutover
Do not cut over on a 11/11-class peak. Run a normal peak week end to end, then raise volume. Hardware and network are measured on site, not office Wi-Fi. Training is sorters and couriers; ten minutes to usable is the bar. A station system that works keeps the shift on time, gives problem parcels an owner, and matches delivery fees—so the manager stops asking the group where a piece is.