 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2013) |
Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre (HWDC) is a sorting office for inbound and outbound international mail operated by Royal Mail. Located close to Heathrow Airport, the HWDC is situated in the town of Langley, Berkshire, near Slough, and began operations in 2003.[ citation needed ] The centre is often referred to by its abbreviation, Langley HWDC, or as 'GBLALA' in mail tracking information. [1]
Most mail entering and leaving the United Kingdom is sorted at Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre under tight aviation security standards, [2] following the closure of all other international mail handling facilities in the UK. Parcelforce Worldwide operates two hubs based at Coventry adjacent to the airport. One hub is for parcels for the United Kingdom, and the other for international parcels. Not all mail handled at HWDC arrives by air, as road vehicles that formerly arrived in the UK by ferry at the Port of Dover, or container ship at the Port of Southampton now extend their trip to HWDC by road, instead of entering the Royal Mail network at (now defunct) offices of exchange situated nearest the ports. Outbound mail will usually leave the country by aircraft from the nearby Heathrow Airport.
HWDC is one of the most automated postal centres in Europe, and the site covers 100,000 square metres (25 acres) (10 hectares). [3]
Automated conveyor systems transport trays of mail to automated mail processing equipment and manual or special handling workstations. The conveyors read the bar code labels on the trays and then transport them to the desired destination. When the mail is sorted on the automated mail sorting equipment, the letter destination image is lifted by high speed optical cameras. Both inbound and outbound mail are then automatically sorted into groups.[ citation needed ]
Mail which is departing by air transport is often conveyed in unit load devices, unique to airlines and/or fuselage shapes. Upon arrival, specialised floor conveyors manipulate containers to support their manual loading. Frequently used containers are stored on site in a specialised automated storage and retrieval system. The scheduling of container arrival, loading, and dispatch is sequenced with flight arrival and departures.[ citation needed ]
Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the concept of businesses electronically communicating information that was traditionally communicated on paper, such as purchase orders, advance ship notices, and invoices. Technical standards for EDI exist to facilitate parties transacting such instruments without having to make special arrangements.
Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption according to the needs of customers. Logistics management is a component that holds the supply chain together. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items.
In transportation, freight refers to goods conveyed by land, water or air, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.
Logistics automation is the application of computer software or automated machinery to logistics operations in order to improve its efficiency. Typically this refers to operations within a warehouse or distribution center, with broader tasks undertaken by supply chain engineering systems and enterprise resource planning systems.
Cross-docking is a logistical practice of Just-In-Time Scheduling where materials are delivered directly from a manufacturer or a mode of transportation to a customer or another mode of transportation. Cross-docking often aims to minimize overheads related to storing goods between shipments or while awaiting a customer's order. This may be done to change the type of conveyance, to sort material intended for different destinations, or to combine material from different origins into transport vehicles with the same or similar destinations.
A Travelling Post Office (TPO) was a type of mail train used in Great Britain and Ireland where the post was sorted en route.
In the airline industry, a baggage handler is a person who loads and unloads baggage, and other cargo for transport via aircraft. With most airlines, the formal job title is "fleet service agent/clerk", though the position is commonly known amongst airline employees as a "ramp agent", due to the job's location on the airport ramp (tarmac).
The Port of Halifax comprises various port facilities in Halifax Harbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It covers 10 km2 (3.9 sq mi) of land, and looks after 150 km2 (58 sq mi) of water.
Bag tags, also known as baggage tags, baggage checks or luggage tickets, have traditionally been used by bus, train, and airline carriers to route checked luggage to its final destination. The passenger stub is typically handed to the passenger or attached to the ticket envelope:
The Chicago Area Consolidation Hub (CACH) is a package sorting facility for United Parcel Service, located in the village of Hodgkins, Illinois.
MASkargo is a cargo airline with its head office in the Advanced Cargo Centre (ACC) on the grounds of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang District, Selangor, Malaysia. It is a cargo division of its parent company Malaysia Airlines (MAS) that operates scheduled, charter air cargo services as well as airport to seaport cargo logistics via ground transportation.
An automated guided vehicle (AGV), different from an autonomous mobile robot (AMR), is a portable robot that follows along marked long lines or wires on the floor, or uses radio waves, vision cameras, magnets, or lasers for navigation. They are most often used in industrial applications to transport heavy materials around a large industrial building, such as a factory or warehouse. Application of the automatic guided vehicle broadened during the late 20th century.
An automated storage and retrieval system consists of a variety of computer-controlled systems for automatically placing and retrieving loads from defined storage locations. Automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) are typically used in applications where:
In aviation, holding is a maneuver designed to delay an aircraft already in flight while keeping it within a specified airspace; i.e. "going in circles."
A baggage handling system is a type of conveyor system installed in airports that transports checked luggage from ticket counters to areas where the bags can be loaded onto airplanes. A baggage handling system also transports checked baggage coming from airplanes to baggage claims or to an area where the bag can be loaded onto another airplane.
Transloading, also known as cross-docking, is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to another. It is most commonly employed when one mode cannot be used for the entire trip, such as when goods must be shipped internationally from one inland point to another. Such a trip might require transport by truck to an airport, then by airplane overseas, and then by another truck to its destination; or it might involve bulk material loaded to rail at the mine and then transferred to a ship at a port. Transloading is also required at railroad break-of-gauge points, since the equipment can not pass from one track to another unless bogies are exchanged.
In shipping, break-bulk, breakbulk, or break bulk cargo, also called general cargo, is goods that are stowed on board ships in individually counted units. Traditionally, the large numbers of items are recorded on distinct bills of lading that list them by different commodities. This is in contrast to cargo stowed in modern intermodal containers as well as bulk cargo, which goes directly, unpackaged and in large quantities, into a ship's hold(s), measured by volume or weight.
Order processing is the process or work-flow associated with the picking, packing, and delivery of the packed items to a shipping carrier and is a key element of order fulfillment. Order processing operations or facilities are commonly called “distribution centers” or “DC 's”. There are wide variances in the level of automation associating to the “pick-pack-and-ship” process, ranging from completely manual and paper-driven to highly automated and completely mechanized; computer systems overseeing this process are generally referred to as Warehouse Management Systems or “WMS”.
Mail sorting refers to the methods by which postal systems determine how and where to route mail for delivery. Once accomplished by hand, mail sorting is now largely automated through the aid of specialized machines. The first widely adopted mail sorting machine was the Transorma, first made operational in Rotterdam in 1930.
A goods station or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods, such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are loaded onto or unloaded off of ships or road vehicles and/or where goods wagons are transferred to local sidings.