For some reason this isn't showing up on Yahoo's PALM news page...
biz.yahoo.com
Thursday April 13, 12:11 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
CIBER's Web, Palm and Data Warehousing Solutions
Streamline U.S. Postal Service Work Process
Savings Creates 12-Month Payback Period
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 13, 2000--CIBER, Inc. (NYSE:CBR - news), a leading
orchestrator of e.Business for the Internet-based economy, has teamed up with the U.S. Postal Service to integrate and implement a low-cost, portable
electronic scanning device for postal employees to use at airports nationwide to monitor air carriers' performance and track mail.
CIBER's implementation provides Postal employees with immediate access to incident reports via the Postal Intranet.
CIBER's Internet strategy and solutions expertise aided the Postal Service in choosing and integrating into its data warehousing system the Symbol SPT
1700 series bar code scanning devices based on the Palm Computing© platform, coupled with ScoutSync software from Aether Software, formerly
Riverbed Technologies. These scanning devices assist the Postal Service in streamlining its data collection process and more efficiently monitoring mail
flow and airline performance, significantly saving the Postal Service months of data entry time, labor and operational costs, by reducing the flow of
paperwork and increasing the accuracy of reporting irregular mail handling.
The Postal Service contracts with air carriers to transport mail worldwide. More than 800 U.S. postal employees stationed in airports across the country
are responsible for monitoring mail flow and airline performance, for which they create thousands of paper-based reports used to detect and reduce the
mishandling of mail. These reports also provide data and leverage the Postal Service needs to alter routes, change airlines and possibly assess fines.
Prior to the implementation of the Palm electronic scanning devices, the paper-based process took weeks to perform and often was prone to errors and
incomplete and illegible information. Months could transpire between the time the incident occurred and any type of resolution.
``These devices have done a far better job of capturing the information we need quickly and accurately and have exceeded my expectations more than I
ever thought possible,' said Clayton Bonnell, manager of international operations and support at the U.S. Postal Service. ``We now have data within
hours of an incident, saving us countless hours of data entry, filing, searching and summarizing. CIBER's implementation has easily doubled
productivity, and more importantly, it has provided a huge boost in employee morale, bringing them into the process that frankly wasn't possible before.
We firmly expect the system to pay for itself within 12 months.'
``The Postal Service charged us with determining whether this device would work for their mail operation and we delivered,' said Kevin Norris,
CIBER's Project Manager. ``With this brilliant combination of technology, we improved the incident tracking system for collecting the data and helped
provide the Postal Service managers with more timely and complete information so that swifter action could be taken. CIBER's experts in IT management
consulting services and solutions help businesses like the U.S. Postal Service realize the power of Internet solutions for their business challenges,' he
added.
The scanning devices are currently being used at 10 major sites across the country. A total of 75 to 80 sites will be using the system starting in June.
``The ability to synchronize our data from locations nationwide via the Intranet is a huge advantage,' Bonnell said. ``By porting the data to a web-enabled
database, the Postal Service finally has a way to manage the entire process and allow access to information at the local and regional levels as well as the
Washington D.C. headquarters.'
CIBER, Inc. is a leading orchestrator of e.Business acceleration for the Internet-based economy. CIBER's proven business and technology practices
combine the experience, flexibility and innovation to help enterprise and ``dot.com' clients gain a competitive advantage in today's fast-moving
marketplace. Headquartered in Englewood, Colo., CIBER's team of professionals serves client businesses from 45 offices in the U.S., Canada and
Europe.
``Safe Harbor' Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results to vary materially from such statements. Please refer to discussions of certain of these risks and uncertainties in CIBER's
Annual Reports, 10-Ks, 10-Qs and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. |
