Parcel Tracking and Delivery system, Essays (university) of Reporting and Production

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PARCEL TRACKING SYSTEM

FOR COURIER COMPANIES

DESIGNED AND DEVELOPED

BY

PETER GODFREY OBIKE

([email protected], Skype:peculiarpety,+234-803-418-5981)

for

nsik express delivery(ned)

Chapter One

Introduction 1.0 Introduction This chapter introduces an e-post management system of a courier services which is the first chapter in this research is specifically focused on the theoretical background as well as the statement of the problem, aims and objective of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, organization of the research and finally the definition of terms. This will bring clarity in regards to the general concept of this research project.

1.1 Theoretical Background of the Study A courier service is an organization which offers special deliveries of packages, money, documents or information. Courier servicers usually boast faster delivery times than any alternative method of transporting documents, and many services in the modern world rely on it. The idea of couriers and a courier service has been around almost as long as civilization, with rulers in antiquity using couriers as a means to make new laws and edicts known throughout their lands. In the modern age of international business, the courier service has become a keystone of enterprise, even as emerging technologies such as the fax machine and Internet have rendered them less useful in some areas. The largest courier service in the world is the United Parcel Service (UPS), which delivers more than 12 million packages globally each day. UPS had its roots as a courier service in the beginning of the 20 th^ Century, when it was known as the American Messenger Company. UPS survived the depression and the World Wars, and went on to thrive in the global age. Throughout the

Also, customers must visit the post office before they can purchase stamps or any other item.

1.3 Aims and Objectives of the Study The objectives of this project are as follows: ▲ Analysing global trends in e-commerce and why it is important for economic developments. ▲ Identifying benefits of the adoption of e-post management system by Courier Service Company. ▲ Developing an e-post platform that can be used by customers to order for post office items.

1.4 Significance of the study The significance of the study includes; i. To assist Courier Service Company to increase sales opportunities to the seller, thereby increasing purchasing opportunities to the buyer. ii. Provide buyers with a wider range of choices than traditional commerce, because they can consider many different products and services from a wider variety of sellers. iii. Furthermore, electronic payments can be easier to audit and monitor than payments made by check, which can help protect against fraud and theft. iv. E-commerce platform can make products and services available in remote area.

1.5 Scope of the Study The scope of this project covers all details of a typical e-post application, with emphasis on the front-end portal but excludes the gateway application implementations and technologies. The gateway end which is a very secure e-payment environment is often times built using SSL protocol, which can be procured from the gateways companies and integrated to the e-commerce site to support online, onsite payment management.

1.6 Organisation of Research This project work is divided into five chapters. Chapter one starts with the introduction, theoretical background, statement of problem, aims and objectives of the study, organization of research and definition of terms. Chapter two focus on the review of related literature. Chapter three is concerned with the system analysis and design. And also chapter four consists of system implementation and documentation which are system design, diagram, choice of program language, analysis of modules, programming environment, hardware/software requirement and implementation. Chapter five contains summary, conclusion and recommendation.

1.7 Definition of Terms Courier: A courier is a person or company employed to deliver messages, packages and mail.

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW 2.0 Introduction This chapter which is specifically the second in this project research is concerned with the literature review. There are several things to put in consideration while developing an e-post management system for courier service if it should be effective and user friendly. The literature review thus contains an overview of courier Service Company, e-commerce, postal services and saving products.

2.1 An overview of Courier Service Company According to Nick Mathiason (2007), a courier is a person or company employed to deliver messages, packages and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of services, and committed delivery times, which are optional for most everyday mail services. As a premium service, couriers are usually more expensive than usual mail services, and their use is typically restricted to packages where one or more of these features are considered important enough to warrant the cost. Different courier services operate on all scales, from within specific towns or cities, to regional national and global services. The world’s largest courier companies are Aramex, DHL, FedEx, TNT N.V. and UPS. These offer services worldwide, typically via a hub and spoke model. In ancient times runners and homing pigeons were used to deliver timely messages. When the horse became domesticated, its use was rapidly adopted

by couriers. Before there were mechanized courier services, foot messengers physically ran miles to their destinations. To this day there are marathons directly related to actual historical messenger routes. In cities, there are often bicycle couriers or motorcycle couriers but for consignments requiring delivery over greater distance networks, this may often include trucks, railways and aircraft. Many companies who operate under a Just-In-Time or “JIT” inventory method often utilize on-board couriers are individuals who can travel at a moment’s notice anywhere in the world, usually via commercial airlines. While this type of service is the second costliest – general aviation charters are far more expensive-companies analyse the cost of service to engage an on- board courier versus the “cost” the company will realize should the product not arrive by a specified time (i.e. an assembly line stopping, untimely court filing, lost sales from product or components missing a delivery deadline, organ transplants). Over time, demand for a new type of representative courier has emerged. With the increase in fuel prices and productivity goals monitored closely by companies, this new type of all-in-one courier has been developed to “take care of business”. Workers in companies have more work and less time to be out of the office. The genus of the UK same-day courier market stems from the London Taxi companies but soon expanded into dedicated motorcycle dispatch riders with the taxi companies setting up separate arms to their companies to cover the courier work. During the late 1970s small provincial and regional companies were popping up throughout the country. Today, there are many large companies offering next-day courier services, including City

particularly dependent on independent contractors. It is estimated that 50-65% of U.S. courier companies use independent contractors to make deliveries in addition to their own dedicated employee resources. In December 2007, the Internal Revenue Service of the US ‘tentatively decided’ that FedEx Ground Division might be facing a tax liability of $ million for 2002, due to misclassification of its operatives as independent contractors. Reversing a 1994 decision which allowed FedEx to classify its operatives that own their own vehicles, the IRS is auditing the years 2003 to 2006, with a view to assessing whether similar misclassification of operatives has taken place. FedEx denies that any irregularities in classification have taken place, but is facing legal action from operatives claiming benefits that would have accrued had they been classified as employees. Many expedited courier companies are regional; small businesses which can also provide additional services such as logistics management, archive warehousing, messenger centres, outsourced mailroom services and coordinated airfreight forwarding delivery services. Starting in the mid-1980s, bicycle couriers who were more economical for shorter distance deliveries, began to supplant motorcycle couriers in the larger cities. Rising costs, including insurance premiums and petrol, made motorcycle couriers less competitive. Except for the metropolitan areas most of the same-day couriers throughout the country now use small vans to do deliveries. Under the current financial climate the trend has seen corporate businesses evaluate courier costs and steer away from same-day couriers and tend to sway towards the cheaper next day delivery solution.

These couriers specialize in delivering important or sensitive packages that need to be received in the local area; and/or because of time and temperature concerns, such as organs for transplant or key equipment or parts that are necessary for day to day operations. While most companies use courier services, certain industries depend on couriers on a daily basis. Biomedical labs need samples for testing and evaluation, manufacturing industries require parts to keep their plants operating smoothly, financial institutions transfer multiple documents every day between branches and processing centres, law firms must deliver confidential signature documents on very strict deadlines for court filings and pharmaceutical distributors use couriers to transport medications to hospitals and nursing homes. Even two-day delivery services use courier firms. When a mistake has been discovered, courier firms fill in the gaps and ensure packages are delivered on time. The conditions of employment of couriers vary from country to country, city to city and even company to company. Contracts governing the relationship between individual courier and company are subject to customary practice, as local ordinance. In some places, couriers are independent contractors paid on commission and do not receive benefits such as health insurance. In other place, they are regular employees of the courier company enjoying all the benefits thereof. 2.2 E-Commerce To many people, the term electronic commerce (sometimes shortened to e- commerce) (Kalakota & Whinston 1999) means shopping in the part of the internet called the World Wide Web. However, e-commerce has a much broader scope and encompasses many more business activities other than just

electronic business to be “the transformation of key business processes through the use of internet technologies”. Several technologies are needed for e-commerce to exist. The most obvious one is the internet. Beyond that system of interconnected networks, many other sophisticated software and hardware components are needed to provide the required support structure: database software, network switches and hubs, encryption hardware and software, multimedia support, and the World Wide Web. The following are the characteristics of e-commerce technologies (Burns 2002): Ease of automated processing: A paper can now easily automate the generation and processing of multiple payments with minimal effort and cost. Previously, the dependency upon banks to handle most payments and the lack of a cheap, ubiquitous communications technology made automation of payment processes expensive and difficult to establish. Immediacy of result: Payment immediacy occurs because of automation and the ability of the intermediate systems and providers to process payments in real- time. In manual, paper based systems there exists a time delay due to the requirement of human intervention in the process. Loss of collateral information: The new technology dispenses with, or alters collateral information accompanying transactions. This information has traditionally been part of the transaction, and has been relied upon by the transaction parties to validate individual payments. Globalization: Globalization, or the minimization of geographical factors in making payments, is an obvious aspect of the new payments systems. Its effect is upon areas such as size of the payments marketplace, uncertainty as

to legal jurisdiction in the event of disputes, location and availability of transaction trail, and the ability of a payment scheme to rapidly adapt to regulatory regimes imposed by one country by moving to another.

2.3 Postal Services The Post Office provides information on services and accepts postal items and payment on behalf of the two collection and delivery divisions of the Royal Mail Group, Royal Mail and Parcel Force. These include a variety of ordinary and guaranteed services both for delivery within the United Kingdom and to International destinations. Postage stamps (including commemorative stamps and other philatelic items), air letters and international reply coupons are sold, while applications for redirection of mail are accepted on behalf of Royal Mail. Post Office Local Collet is a scheme whereby undelivered mail can be redirected at customer request to a post office for convenient collection. Personal banking services are offered on behalf of a number of “partner banks” that the Post Office has agreements with. Although different services are available on behalf of different institutions, these may include cash withdrawals, paying in cash and cheques, balance enquiries and cheque encashment. Some post offices also have cash machines, mainly provided by Bank of Ireland. The Post Office Card Account is a basic bank account allowing customers to collect benefit payment. Most other basic accounts can be accessed through post offices. The Card Account cannot be accessed anywhere other than a post office counter or ATM at a post office. These

the form of automated payments (bar coded bills, swipe cards, key charging) or manual transactions through the Alliance & Leicester Transcash system. The name Transcash was formally used by Girobank. The Transcash service is not advertised and a search for “Transcash” on the Post Office Website returns no results. However, Transcash forms (still marked “Girobank”) were still available at Post Office counters in October 2010. Post Office savings were first introduced by Henry Fawcett in the 1880s but were phased out in the 1960s. They were re-introduced in August 2004 because of consumer demand. In 2010 saving stamps were withdrawn and replaced by the Budget Card. In 2011 it was announced that Post Office saving stamps would have to be redeemed by 28 th^ February 2011, although any customers who miss the deadline can post their saving stamps to a central post office location where the stamps will be validated.

CHAPTER THREE

SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

3.0 Introduction According to Oxford advanced dictionary, methodology is a set of methods and principles used to perform a particular activity. This chapter deals with the methods used in carrying out the project and the analysis of the methods used.

3.1 Research Methodology During the project work, data collection was carried out in various ways. In gathering and collecting necessary data and information needed for the project, Magazines, Journal, Articles, e-books and the Internet in general were sourced. Useful information for the development of the system was also collected from the case study. The software development approach used in the design of this project is the top-down approach. A top-down approach (also known as stepwise design or deductive reasoning) is essentially the breaking down of a system to gain insight into its compositional subsystems. In the top-down approach, an overview of the system is formulated, specifying but not detailing any first level subsystem. Each subsystem is then refined in yet greater detail, sometimes in many additional subsystem levels, until the entire specification is reduced to base elements.

3.2 System Analysis

ii. process analysis The information gathered was processed into a more meaning format for entry into the system. The processing was basically on the parcel records.

iii. Output Analysis The output from the system, designed is generated from the system inputs. More of the output generated is on parcel received and delivery information.

3.2.2 Limitations of the Existing System Due to the manual means being used by courier Service Company in keeping parcel records information, lots of problems was encountered which include: a. Delay in processing parcel files. b. Loss of vital documents as the filing system is manual. c. Damage of documents due to fire incident. d. Illegal removal of files by fraudulent staff leading to insecurity.

3.2.3 Overview of the Proposed System The new system is designed to solve problems affecting the manual system in use. It is designed to be computerized thereby relieving both the customers and staff from much stress as experienced in the manual system. This system will do the analysing and storing of information either automatically or interactively.

3.2.3.1 Advantages of the Proposed System The advantages of the proposed system thus include:

i. Accuracy in the handling of data ii. Fast rate of operation and excellent responses time. iii. Better storage and faster retrieval system.

3.2.3.2 Disadvantages of the Proposed System i. The cost effectiveness of implementing and regular maintenance is another challenging fact related to this system. ii. It can serve as an attack tool of computer hackers and crackers. iii. There is possible corruption and damages of files if the system is attacked by virus or other malwares.

3.3 System Design The project applies a modular design with the various project features represented using modules.

3.3.1 Input Layout

Sender Info:

Sender name:

Phone:

Address:

Receiver Info