Pitney Bowes improves processes for staff and facilitates student’s life at Wilfrid Laurier University
Business Challenge
- Limited availabilities for pickups from 8am to 4pm Monday through Friday with the Distribution Services located far from the center of campus
- Labour-intensive process for staff
Our solution
- Streamlines package handling, while also providing full accountability for parcels until they are delivered to students and faculty.
- Provide efficiency and control with centralized parcel management.
Benefits of our smart parcel lockers
- Allowed the university to reallocate staff resources.
- The university is now saving CAD$25,000-30,000 every year
Wilfrid Laurier University provides high quality higher education across campuses in four Ontario cities: Waterloo, Brantford, Kitchener and Milton.
Business challenge
The residence students at the Waterloo campus receive about 2,000 parcels per month, including care packages and online orders. The Distribution Services team formerly used an inconsistent process that led to inefficiencies in parcel delivery. The process was labour-intensive for staff and inconvenient for students.
"We have happy staff and happy students. We would install Pitney Bowes Smart Lockers in every building if we could. They are paving the way for the future of parcel pickup at Wilfrid Laurier University."
Our Smart Parcel Locker solution
Wilfrid Laurier University typically focuses on its core competency of educating students. However, efficiency improvements proved elusive for the Distribution Services team. To improve staff productivity, as well as convenience of package pickups for residence students, Wilfrid Laurier University rolled out a bank of Pitney Bowes ParcelPoint™ Smart Lockers. The lockers automated much of the manual work from the university’s prior parcel delivery process, freeing up staff to provide higher-value services. Residence students can now pick up packages during campus operating hours from a central location at a time that is more convenient for them.
When a parcel arrives at the distribution center, a staff member scans it and SendSuite® Tracking assigns it to a locker. Distribution Services staff deliver the parcels to the lockers a few times a day. Once a package is added in a locker, the system generates an automated email notification to the students. When they arrive at the locker bank, they scan the QR code from their phone or enter a code manually, and the locker opens.
The software is very intuitive and easy-to-use for staff and students.
“We were also able to step up early in the pandemic. Distribution Services took responsibility for distributing PPE and COVID-19 rapid antigen test kits. The efficiencies of the smart lockers have allowed us to reallocate staff resources.”
Benefits of our smart parcel lockers
For Distribution Services staff, the lockers reduced the manual work related to package notifications and delivery. This has enabled the team to take on additional work. For one thing, an internal staff member replaced the courier service that was moving packages between campuses on a daily basis. This change is saving the university CAD$25,000-30,000 every year. The university has already installed 30 lockers in Brantford and is adding 29 more in Waterloo, for a total of 61 on that campus.
“In a survey, 94% of students reported that their experience with the lockers has been extremely positive.”
Find out more about our ParcelPoint™ Smart Parcel Lockers or check out our Parcel Receiving and Tracking Solutions.