Speed of Express Delivery Can Hardly Be Improved

Black Friday and the Christmas gift-giving season place a huge burden on the logistics industry. Shoppers expect ever faster and more reliable service as standard, and it's easy to bleed if you make a mistake. Ádám Mészáros, Managing Director of DHL Express Hungary, spoke in the latest edition of the Sounds of Industry podcast about how the speed of express delivery can hardly be increased due to physical constraints, making reliability more important.

A press release by Siemens says that a 1-2-day delay can be a strong argument for choosing another delivery service. But speed alone is almost irrelevant, the key to customer satisfaction is not waiting in vain for the courier and getting the parcel the first time. That's why DHL is all about speed and precision. It's understandable, with shipments to 220 countries and territories around the world in one, two or three days, from half-kilo envelopes to three-ton industrial shipments of many pallets.

To give an idea of the company's speed, Ádám Mészáros explained in the latest episode of the Voices of Industry podcast that if a parcel is picked up in Székesfehérvár in the afternoon, it arrives at the depot by 4pm and leaves Budapest before 10pm, then flies via Leipzig at night to Rome, where it arrives at 6am and can be delivered by 9am. This speed is the result of DHL's decades of expertise and a closed logistics network. This means that each parcel moves through the company's own system, rather than hand-to-hand, minimizing the potential for errors and reducing delivery times.

Drones, automated sorting and artificial intelligence
The latest report from DHL Logistics Trend Radar shows that the future of logistics lies in technological innovation, but not all innovations are immediately available in everyday practice. Drones are technically ready, but regulation is a major barrier. They already work well in confined environments, such as inside factories, hospitals or factories, but it is still time before we encounter them on a street in Budapest," Ádám Mészáros said. He cited Germany as an example, where the company has used drones to deliver medicines, among other things, thus supplying an island from the continent.

Automation will also play a key role in DHL's operations. The fully automated sortation system at the Budapest depot can handle up to 6,000 parcels per hour. This means 100 parcels per minute, backed by Siemens technology, which also helps to ensure that the goods ordered reach their destination quickly. And artificial intelligence not only helps with customs clearance, automating processes, but computer vision, for example, allows for more accurate tracking in warehouses while offering customized services. But AI is also playing a role in last-mile logistics, analyzing traffic data in real time to help optimize routing. And the deployment of robots is the next step in improving efficiency in on-site logistics, and it is expected that robotic delivery will eventually be introduced to intra-city deliveries.