Lockheed Martin is a leading systems integrator of postal technology with 40 years of experience. Their Managing Director discusses the main challenges facing the postal industry as letter volumes decline and e-commerce rises. Their strategy is to deliver value to existing customers, focus on challenges like parcel processing, and develop next-generation sorting solutions using flexible cloud architectures. Recent innovations include improving USPS parcel sorting and address recognition rates over 99%.

1. MERMAIL & EXPRESS REVIEW | AUTUMN 2015
MAKING ADDRESSES
SMARTER
BERMUDA
PAST &
PRESENT
John Modd talks to Allan
Wayne Smith, Postmaster
General, Bermuda Post Office
Giles Rhys Jones of
what3words presents the
case for a new universal
address system
A LAYERED
APPROACH
Delivering the benefits of
3D printing
12
22
52
32
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MERMAIL & EXPRESS REVIEW | WINTER 2015
BRIDGE TO
THE FUTURE
ARAMEX
ASCENDING
The rise of a global playerThe integration of digital
and physical processes
A LEVEL
PLAYING
FIELD?
POSTAL
STRATEGIES
Innovation and adaptation
in the postal sector
33
Competing in
Europe

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3. 66 MAIL & EXPRESS REVIEW - WINTER 2015
E-COMMERCE AND
POSTAL SYSTEMS
INTEGRATIONMail & Express Review talks to Emlyn Taylor, Managing Director, Lockheed
Martin Systems Solutions. Lockheed Martin was a premium sponsor of this
year’s World Mail & Express Europe Conference and Exhibition.
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4. 67MAIL & EXPRESS REVIEW - WINTER 2015
Lockheed Martin is a leading systems integrator of
postal technology and services with forty years of
experience in providing business critical applications
and material handling solutions for postal operators.
The company applies a collaborative approach with
postal operators and suppliers in order to deliver
the optimum solution for its customers from first
to last mile, and integrates advanced material
handling solutions with leading edge recognition
technology. The company uses an agile approach
for project delivery combined with best practice
service management, which has enabled it to reduce
operational costs and to increase speed to market for
new products and services for a range of customers,
including the United States Postal Service, Royal Mail
Group, PostNord and Australia Post.
MER: As recently appointed Managing Director,
how are you finding your new role and what are
the goals for Lockheed Martin?
ET: I am very excited to be part of Lockheed Martin’s
forty year legacy in the industry. In my fifteen years of
experience, as Chief Architect, Technical Director and,
recently, as Managing Director, I have watched how
the industry has developed and this is a very exciting
time to get to grips with the challenges faced by postal
administrations across the world.
It is clear that government owned postal operators and
independent operators are facing significant challenges
across both domestic and international supply chains
as mail volumes and revenues drop, e-commerce
volumes increase, and consumers are faced with
increased choice.
I think Lockheed Martin’s experience and capabilities
put us in a very strong position to help new and
existing customers to adapt to these changes and
pressures. We aim to extend our existing market
leading capabilities in address recognition, data
management and systems integration through
the development and rollout of new technology
and innovative solutions to the challenges faced by
the industry.
MER: That is an ambitious set of goals. What has
driven your success so far?
ET: Indeed, it has not always been easy. Lockheed
Martin has many years of experience with our
customers and we always take the approach where
we ensure we understand their business and strategy,
and what is happening in the market. That way we can
provide service levels to stretching targets, as well as
being able to propose and develop bespoke innovative
solutions to meet their specific needs. We think it
is important to be able to give customers solutions
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5. 68 MAIL & EXPRESS REVIEW - WINTER 2015
E-COMMERCE AND POSTAL SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
that meet their specific needs, rather than a standard
service or product.
A good example of Lockheed Martin working closely
with a customer has been our long relationship with
Royal Mail over the last twelve years, where we have
exceeded our Availability Service Level Agreement of
99.95%. Over 25% of the world’s letter mail is sorted
using Lockheed Martin recognition systems, so we
must be doing something right!
MER: In your view what are the main challenges
facing the postal industry?
ET: Letter volumes and revenues are dropping fast in
all developed economies, placing greater emphasis on
the need to automate, to reduce costs and to ensure
that mail can still be seen as relevant in today’s digital
world. At the same time, in the packets and parcels
market, volumes are on the increase with attendant
volume problems at peak times, and we are now in
a customer driven e-commerce world, where both
senders and receivers have a choice of delivery
options. National operators are being challenged by
alternative delivery companies, with flexible collection
and delivery methods. Customers are willing to pay
more for flexibility and to have predictable and reliable
deliveries with up to date information. This challenges
many postal operations and their supporting
technologies which have been established with
standard sets of processes evolved over many years.
So the solution is to bring agility into the operation,
and integration of new and legacy systems at pace. The
successful companies are the ones that can meet the
pace of this change, and invest to meet that challenge.
At Lockheed Martin we recognise these pressures and
we are constantly driving innovation: development
of our recognition technology and the supporting
systems, adding maximum value to both letter and
parcel systems, and looking for new ideas.
MER: What is Systems Solutions’ current strategy?
ET: Our vision is to grow our successful systems
integration capability globally, building on the solutions
that we have today and expanding into new markets
within both post and logistics.
Our strategy is threefold:
• Firstly, to deliver maximum value to our existing
customers by providing innovative technology and
services. We provide enterprise level recognition
systems which are at the heart of the operation for
USPS, Royal Mail, PostNord and Australia Post, and
these solutions are supported by managed services
to ensure the highest possible availability for these
business critical applications.
• Secondly, we are focusing on the big challenges
faced by postal operators today as the market
changes. These include solutions such as improving
recognition capabilities to reduce costs, last mile
optimisation, driving operational efficiencies through
data analytics, and providing solutions for parcel
processing applications.For instance we are seeing
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6. 69MAIL & EXPRESS REVIEW - WINTER 2015
a 15% per year increase in parcels volumes for USPS,
which is reflected around the world as e-commerce
volumes continue to grow.
• Finally, we are concentrating on the next generation
of sorting solutions and services. Postal operators
require flexible services to manage the variations
in mail and parcel volumes. For example, although
letters volumes are declining generally, at Lockheed
Martin we are not seeing a significant drop in
demand for letter processing, because the market
changes are driving more operators to consider how
they can use automation technology, and they are
looking for new products and solutions such as the
use of the cloud. Our strategy is to migrate existing
and new services onto flexible architectures
with agile commercial models to meet our
customers’ needs.
MER: Can you tell us about some of Lockheed
Martin Systems Solutions recent innovations?
ET: We have been working on a number of exciting
areas including:
• Further developments in our high volume parcel sorting
systems with USPS to deal with increasing volumes.
• Refining the effectiveness of our address recognition
capabilities which has allowed us to work closely with
our largest customer to significantly reduce their
requirements for manual data entry centres; our read
rates are over 99%.
• By giving our customers unparalleled access to
data on the items in their pipelines we have been
able to work with them on innovative solutions
for revenue protection in large mail volumes, and
commercialisation of that data.
• We have worked with customers on a range of
innovative solutions for consumers, including payment
for postage on line or via mobiles, and tracking
progress of items online.
• We also are continuing to develop our expertise
in systems integration, and we are extending
further along mail and parcel value chains through
development of capabilities in areas such as yard
management and production planning and control.
Emlyn Taylor is based in Havant in the UK, where he
is responsible for managing a £100m turnover and
250 staff. He started his career in Siemens Plessey
before working as a consultant for twelve years in
a wide range of software related organisations. He
joined Lockheed Martin full time in 2008. He has
also held roles as Chief Engineer, Chief Architect and
Technical Director.
E-COMMERCE AND POSTAL SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
It is clear that government
owned posts and
independent operators are
facing significant challenges
across both domestic
and international supply
chains as mail volumes and
revenues drop, e-commerce
volumes increase, and
consumers are faced with
increased choice.
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