TERMS OF REFERENCE BETWEEN ROYAL MAIL AND THE CWU COVERING THE TRIAL OF FINGER SCANNERS FOR INDOOR TASKS FOR HIGHER VOLUME DELIVERY OFFICES
Dear Colleagues,
Branches will recall that there was previous trial activity agreed and outlined in LTB 165/18 to undertake trials in 10 Delivery Offices on the use of Finger Scanners.
Overall the scanners were relatively well received by OPGs and managers, with favourable comments about the weight and ease of handling compared to the PDAs. With the conclusion of the study deemed that Finger Scanners accelerated the scanning process for Tracked items in the majority of cases and that further analysis suggested that it benefitted:
- Large Tracked Return Receivers
- Delivery Offices within Plants (where they could dual use the finger scanners already present)
- Smaller offices with large Tracked volumes where a combined Scan and Sort Process could be introduced
As a result of further discussions with the business, we have agreed with Royal Mail to further expand the trial of Finger Scanner accessories (paired to the existing PDAs) in 11 agreed large receiving DOs.
The purpose of the trial extension would be to confirm whether there is a consistent case for their use on a more widespread basis, and to inform when a tipping point might occur in terms of the volume of parcels and to further determine if this is appropriate for all parcel sizes or more specific to particular volumetric formats. The trial extension would aid a decision as to whether and where to deploy these more widely which is agreed would be subject to further National discussions.
As Branches will note from the trial TOR, we believe the document includes all the necessary safeguards and clearly defines that there is full involvement of CWU and staff within the trial, along with the necessary training and support, also along with the appropriate SSOW, etc.
In addition, any operational changes required to facilitate the trial arrangements will be progressed in line with the IR Framework.
Further to this, the trial will be jointly overseen by the National leads and will be formally reviewed by the signatories of this TOR. Local managers and CWU Representatives involved will also have the opportunity to feed into this process.
Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 540, email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
CWU Assistant Secretary
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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