Driving Innovation with Autonomous Robots

Discover Nexive - LEA Reply™ advanced parcel management

Have you ever considered how many times your e-Commerce shipment is handled before it is delivered to your door? Are you curious how digital transformation is impacting what happens behind the scenes?

Find out how Logistics Reply helped Nexive, one of the major players in parcel distribution in the Italian market, empower the sorting and shipment of over eight million parcels each year with its next generation supply chain execution platform LEA Reply™ and the latest automation technology.

The Context

The collaboration between Logistics Reply and Nexive started in 2015, when Logistics Reply developed the LEA Reply™ Last Mile Delivery App for Nexive, a cloud-based Android App that assists drivers in handling all of the operations typical of 'last mile' deliveries: trip composition, route optimisation, delivery certification, electronic signature capture, payment processing and real-time ETA notifications. In 2016, Nexive decided to invest in a new solution to manage its logistics hubs and transit points for the parcel business. They were looking for a solution that would be able to cope with the intense growth that the company was undergoing and forecasting for the next years.

In particular, the solution would need to address the following requirements:

  • Guide operators in their daily work managing parcels from check-in and sorting to the truck loading.

  • Provide monitoring dashboards to inform supervisors about the progress of daily activities and exceptions or delays.

  • Offer unlimited scalability to support peak volumes typical of a business significantly affected by seasonality.

The Solution

Nexive again turned to Logistics Reply to meet these needs.

LEA Reply™ Hub & Network is the solution that manages receiving, sorting, cross docking, consolidation and shipping activities in multi-level distribution networks; and consists of a mobile and a web application. Logistics Reply extended and configured this solution to make it the perfect fit for Nexive’s operational model.The mobile application provides improved usability to guide users through all steps of their daily work, from check-in and sorting to the truck loading. The web application provides a complete set of live dashboards and reports for advanced monitoring and to inform supervisors about the progress of daily activities and about any exceptions or delays to be addressed, with the possibility of easily drilling-down to the relevant data in order to take the appropriate actions.

LEA Reply™ Hub & Network was successfully rolled out to the entire Nexive parcel network in May of 2017, thus managing, from its day one, a logistics network made up of over 160 sites across Italy, and supporting over 700,000 shipments per month.In a second phase of the project, which started in 2018, Logistics Reply helped integrate the LEA Hub & Network solution with “Autonomous Sorting” capabilities. This part of the project focused on the integration of autonomous robots called Rovers, which can move through a warehouse area, in the traffic of other rovers, capturing useful information (e.g. weight, size) and sorting parcels into the right containers or gates for shipment. The LEA Reply™ Platform is the core brain steering the decisions that the robots take. LEA Reply™ uses EDGE technology and a Fog architecture to allow the Rovers to respond within milliseconds and guarantee precision, security and performance.

Main Achievements with LEA Reply

Excellent balance between efficiency and flexibility

The LEA Reply solution offers an excellent balance between efficiency and flexibility, ensuring that operations run smoothly and adapt to changing demands.

Scalable investment according to seasonal peaks

With the LEA Reply solution, investments can be scaled according to seasonal peaks, providing cost-effective solutions during high-demand periods.

Greater visibility and control over the entire shipment network

LEA Reply enhances visibility and control over the entire shipment network, allowing for better management and tracking of shipments.

High level of reliability as rovers can easily be substituted

The solution ensures a high level of reliability, as rovers can be easily substituted when needed, maintaining operational continuity.

ABOUT NEXIVE

Nexive

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Nexive, is the largest private postal operator in the Italian market. Headquartered in Milan, Nexive began its operations as TNT Post in 1998 after subsequent acquisitions of private delivery agencies and other product and service companies in the sector, including the historic brand Rinaldi l'Espresso. In 2014 TNT Post became Nexive: a name that provides the company vision to be the platform for excellence in mail delivery and e-commerce. Every day, Nexive reaches 100% of Italian families with over 400 million envelopes and its parcel distribution network that in 2018 handled about 8.5 million packages. Nexive employs over 8.000 employees and oversees the Italian territory with a network of almost 1.900 direct, indirect and retail points.