Lockheed Martin Corp’s Federal Systems division has been awarded a $218m contract to integrate and deploy some 300,000 Mobile Data Collection Devices and internal computer systems at over 32,000 US Postal Services offices in the US. The MDCD system will provide delivery confirmation of express mail, priority mail, parcels and accountable mail, based on technology from portable terminal and bar code scanning company Symbol Technologies Inc, which says the contract is its largest ever, and worth some $100m, up until the end of 1998. Symbol will manufacture the MDCDs over the six year period that the contract runs. All postal delivery workers will be kitted out with the mobile devices to scan bar codes, recording the date and time of delivery of mail. At the end of the day the devices will be stored in docking ports which will be linked to Pentium-based computers provided by Lockheed Martin running Windows NT, which will automatically transfer data recorded throughout the day to postal host systems.
