From 'One Post Office' website:
Branch technology
Counter equipment can be up to 15-years old and plans have been taking shape to replace kit in some branches.
Rob Houghton, chief information officer, said: “The Post Office is committed to investing in branch technology and we know many of you have been waiting for an update on this for a long time.
“We’re pleased to announce that in early 2017, we’ll start delivering newer and faster hardware to an initial group of 1,400 branches.
“This first phase will include all those operating mobile and outreach branches, which have unique kit and so need to be updated at the start of the programme."
Branches receiving new equipment as part of the first group will be contacted in early 2017.
I'm hoping that I will be able to report on this first hand as a local postmaster runs 5 or 6 Outreach branches, and has long complained about the IT kit. On the other hand with rural telephone and broadband connections as wonky as they are, new Horizon kit won't solve all his problems!
It might just mean that we see a further change to the printing and the stamps and labels used. Although the larger items would need a large label, as shown above, to accommodate the bar-code maybe we will see Post and Go type stamps used for ordinary mail.
An Post of Ireland has gone this way with their 2017 definitive issue, these pictures from Commonwealth Stamps Opinion. Entitled 'A history of Ireland in 100 objects' the stamps are a mixture of machine-vended variable value and self-adhesive NVI booklets:
The Isle of Man postal service will launch its "Variable value" definitive stamps at Spring Stampex next month. The initial publicity shows 4 designs depicting "The Legs of Mann" and they look very much like "Post and Go" labels but so far the publicity has not used that term so presumably the stamps will not be Royal Mail IAR labels but from another source - perhaps the same as the Irish "Stamps on a reel" (SOAR) (I'm only speculating here of course) No doubt the Isle of Man postal service will give more details in the near future.
ReplyDeleteLarge business users can hire a post and go type printer from An Post and use it to produce labels in whatever values they require.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what these will look like
ReplyDeletehttps://www.myroyalmail.com/news/2017/02/labels-go
Like This
Deletehttp://www.royalmailgroup.com/royal-mail-introduces-labels-go-self-service-mobile-returns-solutions
Better picture on Twitter
https://twitter.com/royalmailnews
Thanks Trevor, worthy of its own entry in the blog, which is really busy this week!
Delete> http://blog.norphil.co.uk/2017/02/labels-to-go-makes-it-easier-to-post.html
it looks like Horizon is staying
ReplyDeletehttps://www.onepostoffice.co.uk/secure/latest-news/our-branches/keeping-communities-connected/