A COMPUTERIZED COURIER SERVICE SYSTEM FOR PACKAGE DELIVERY

NAME: ADEGBEMILE DAMILOLA IYIOLA

INTRODUCTION

1.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Courier is a special messenger, especially one carrying diplomatic correspondence. A courier is

a person who makes arrangements for or accompanies a group of travelers on a journey or tour

(William, 2009). In ancient history, runners and homing pigeons and riders on horseback were

used to deliver timely messages. Before there were mechanized courier services, foot messengers

physically ran miles to their destinations. To this day there are marathons directly related to

actual historical messenger routes. In the Middle Ages, royal courts maintained their own

messengers who were paid little more than common laborers. In cities, there are often bicycle

couriers or motorcycle couriers but for consignments requiring delivery over greater distance

networks, this may often include lorries, railways and aircraft. Package delivery or parcel

delivery is the delivery of parcels from a source (sender) to the destination (receiver). The

service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private package delivery services, and

less than truckload shipping carriers.

Adegbemile Logistics is an eService for home delivery businesses. Many of the boring, but

mandatory, administrative tasks that are part of the business are operated by an officer in the

company. A dispatch rider (courier) delivers packages, and mail. Couriers are distinguished from

ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and

individualization of express services, and swift delivery times, which are optional for most

everyday mail services. As a premium service, couriers are usually more expensive than standard
mail services, and their use is typically restricted to packages where one or more of these

features are considered important enough to warrant the cost (Carola, 2012). Adegbemile

Logistics operates on scales, within the local border areas of Nigeria and will soon expand to all

countries in West Africa.

Recently, it is very important for people to send or receive articles, furniture, electronic items,

gifts, business goods and the like. People depend vastly on different transport systems which

mostly use the manual way of receiving and delivering the articles, as there is no way to track the

parcels until they are received, and there is no way to let the customer know what happened in

transit. In such a situation, we need a system which completely computerizes the cargo activities

including time to time tracking of the articles sent. This need is fulfilled by the Courier Service

System software (Adegbemile Logistics) which is an online software for the cargo management

people that enables them to receive the goods from a source and send them to a required

destination and track their status from time to time. There is need for people to interact and share

things with ease and less trouble because Information and communication technologies are

improving on a daily basis, which tends to make information distribution easier, more efficient

and effective. But there is need for other material items to be shared considering the fact that we

are in a jet age, hence, speed is the keyword in everything we desire to do. Courier services tends

to ensure the transfer of our material goods from source location to target destination at a much

faster speed, with ease for the sender. The set goal of every organisation is efficiency and

effectiveness, and these are what ensure the growth of business endeavors. It is therefore

important that each organisation will put in place an efficient and effective system of which

courier company is inclusive. The job of a courier company when looked upon superficially

might seem simple “Movement of goods from one place to another”. But if studied closely, it is
complex than one would imagine. Therefore, it is highly imperative that a proficient courier

service system be developed for managing the activities of the courier company in order for

increased productivity, efficiency and effectiveness to be ensured. The courier company, vested

with this responsibility on ensuring safe and speedy transfer of items from one part of the city to

the other, invariably needs to employ adequate technology in ensuring that this goal is met. Each

courier company has its area of coverage, and will have a branch office in every major city

within its scope. Currently there are those that cover almost all, if not all, parts of the world. But

whether or not the coverage area is just within a particular country or the world, the need arises

for an efficient system with which to manage the daily business of receiving, transferring and

delivering items from one place to another. Courier services operate on all scales, from within

specific towns or cities, to regional, national and global services. Large courier companies

include GIG Logistics, DHL and FedEx. These offer services worldwide, typically via a hub and

spoke model. A courier service is a company that offers special deliveries of packages, money,

documents or information. These services usually boast faster delivery times than any

alternative method of transporting documents, and many businesses rely on them. The idea of

couriers has been around almost as long as civilization, with rulers in antiquity using them as a

means to make new laws known throughout their lands. In the modern age of international

business, this type of service has become a keystone of enterprise, even as emerging technologies

such as the fax machine and Internet have rendered them less useful in some areas (McGuigan,

2013).

Smaller courier services are common, particularly in cities. This type of service finds its niche in

smaller packages and documents that need to be transported from one location in a city to

another as quickly as possible. Couriers in these companies often ride bicycles or motorcycles in
order to achieve the shortest turnaround times from pickup to delivery. Indeed, the bicycle

messenger, whizzing through crowded traffic at unbelievable speeds with a satchel over one

shoulder, has become a symbol of the youthful daredevilry of city life. In recent years, with the

emergence of more sophisticated communications technologies and a harsh price

competitiveness, the number of bicycle couriers in most cities has decreased significantly, but

the market remains strong for those who continue to work (Foster, 2013).

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Efficiency and effectiveness are the keywords for every organization. They are what ensure the

growth and prosperity of business endeavors. Therefore, it is important that each organization

will put in place a system, and the courier company is not left out of this. The job of a courier

company, when looked at superficially, might seem simple: movement of goods from one place

to another. But when studied closely, one will discover it is more complex than one would think.

Hence, it is highly imperative that a proficient courier service system be developed for managing

the activities of the courier company in order to ensure increased productivity, efficiency and

effectiveness.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study is to design and develop a reliable, scalable and cost effective Courier

Service System. This is to be achieved by the following objectives:

a. To design a new system for tracking and management of couriers.

b. To implement the design.

c. To generate reports regarding incoming and outgoing packages in order to assist the branch

manager in tracking couriers.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

effectiveness and productivity of a courier company. It tends to simplify the work process of

recording details of consignments received, dispatched, record keeping etc. which will be

adequately handled with which the courier company will get more returns from and attain better

customer satisfaction.

1.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The cost of purchasing the Software Development Kit (SDK) for integrating the report generator

to the software was high and not easily affordable and limited time in getting familiar with

software integration to software are the limitations of the study.

1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Courier: An agent or company that delivers messages, packages, and mail.

Dispatch Officer: This is the same as a courier.

Logistics: The management of the flow of resources between the point of origin and the point of

consumption in order to meet some requirements.

Consignment: a batch of goods destined for or delivered to someone

Consignee: is the person to whom something, such as goods or merchandise, is to be delivered.

Consignor: Person who delivers a consignment to a courier for transporting it to a consignee.

Source: The city or courier branch from where a consignment originates.

Destination: The city or courier branch where a consignment is to be delivered.

Sender: This is the same for consignor.

Desk Officer: This is the worker at the courier company that accepts the consignment from the

consignor.
Manifest: A document containing the list of all the consignments being transported at a particular

time from a courier branch to another.

Delivery Run Sheet: A document carried along by a delivery worker of a courier company

containing details of the parcels to be delivered, with a provision for where the receiver will sign

to show receipt of items.

Reference Number: This is a number given to all the consignments by the courier company for

unique identification and record purposes.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, a popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially

suited to web development.

JavaScript: an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create

interactive effects within web browsers.

Courier Service System: A computer application created to automate most of the processes of the

courier company especially as concerned with the recording of receipts and delivery of goods.

MySQL: An open-source relational database management system (RDBMS).