DPD wins once again the Parcel & Postal Technology International award 2022

Yesterday, DPD Netherlands manager Data & Innovation at DPD Netherlands Jorin Aardoom received the Sorting & Fulfilment Technology of the Year award at the Parcel + Post Expo 2022 in Frankfurt. DPD Netherlands won this award for the ‘Parcel Intelligence’ project, which allows DPD to detect counterfeit goods faster. The members of the jury were CEOs and directors of post & parcel delivery services from all over the world. DPD Netherlands competitors included Prime Vision, VarioPick, Tompkins Robotics and SwissSort in the Sorting and Fulfillment Technology category.

With the continuing development of e-commerce and digital marketplaces, the dispatch of illegal parcels, including parcels with counterfeit products, keeps on increasing worldwide. This goes primarily for small parcels: 76% of the illegal parcels are small. It is a phenomenon that seriously affects DPD’s customers in the fashion industry. More and more, these parcels are sent through parcel delivery services, and DPD is now taking action to tackle this problem with parcel intelligence.

Parcel intelligence
In 2021, DPD Netherlands started a pilot project with the Berlin-based company Countercheck to enable parcel intelligence. Parcel intelligence allows DPD to detect counterfeit parcels. In 2022, DPD Netherlands activated a final software solution developed by Countercheck.

Apart from detecting parcels containing counterfeit products, DPD and Countercheck also deploy OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. This technology is used for text recognition and document digitization and is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. The software reads all texts, signs, characters and symbols shown on the parcel and label, but also combines other data points. Sometimes, parcels are wrapped, which a human eye cannot see, but the software’s “smart eyes” can. This allows DPD to detect illegal parcels, including dangerous substances, and to take action to create an even safer work environment for its staff and safeguard ground transport in accordance with the ADR rules.

Measures
For years, DPD has implemented measures to increase the resilience of its operating processes and the safety of the working environment for its employees. In 2021, DPD signed a partnership agreement with Taskforce-RIEC Brabant – Zeeland, and together they are taking action to increase the resilience of the parcel delivery industry against crime that has an undermining effect on society.

Eric Dietz, CEO DPD Netherlands: “We are super proud that our company again is the winner of a great international award. The award is crowning the hard work of all our employees. In essence, our business strategy is based on data, innovation and customer-friendliness. It is a first that we can detect parcels containing counterfeit products, which significantly helps our fashion customers to protect their brands. In addition to all safety measures in place for our business processes, we are now able to better guarantee the safety of our staff and services with Parcel Intelligence.“