For each freighter the cargo team handles, four copies of a flight pack are printed for regulators and stakeholders. Each of these packs contains approximately 160 pages of supporting documents, which quickly adds up to a lot of paper.

As part of a three-month trial at Heathrow, we worked with technology partner KCL Cargoscan solutions to digitise the flight pack. CargoScan creates central hubs of shipping and handling information where our customers can ‘self-serve’ the records they require.

At the same time, Ricoh replaced or upgraded all the printers or replaced them with scanners which are far more efficient than multi-function printers to process this volume of paperwork.

Over the three-month trial, we reduced paper consumption by 421,000 pages We also completely refreshed our equipment with a small reduction in the overall annual cost. It’s a great example of KCL, Ricoh and Menzies working together to implement a solution that provides real value and increased efficiency and we’re working on implementing the solution in another 12 stations during 2022.

The trial is part of a proof of concept (POC) process that is being used to accelerate innovation across our cargo network and is a way to work with key suppliers to deliver technology solutions while reducing the risk and cost.