Royal Mail enhances next-day capabilities with extra parcel sortation machines

To meet its customers’ growing demand for next-day deliveries, Royal Mail is installing another three high-speed Parcel Sortation Machines (PSMs) at mail centers this year, with each machine increasing capacity by 21,000 parcels per hour.

The PSMs will be installed at the Leeds, Plymouth and Exeter mail centers, going live in August, September and October, respectively.

The PSM, 36 of which have been rolled out at 28 mail centers across the UK in the last eight years, is an intelligent system of conveyor belts and scanning technology that automatically sorts parcels more quickly than manual sorting.

Neil Chaplain, engineering and process design director, Royal Mail, said, “Royal Mail’s ongoing investment in automation is helping us to modernize and significantly improve efficiency. The rollout of these new PSMs will help us to meet the increasing consumer demand for next-day parcel delivery and will help contribute to our efforts to provide a consistently reliable service.”