Chalmers University of Technology
300 parcels a day. Four campus stations. Dangerous goods and frozen lab samples.
FP Trax gives Chalmers full traceability from loading dock to department.
Project information
Around 300 parcels arrive at Chalmers every working day. Coffee powder. Furniture. IT equipment. Gas cylinders. Frozen cell samples for laboratory research. Each one needs to reach the right department, at the right campus station, without getting lost along the way. FP Trax makes that happen.
At a glance
- 300 parcels a day: coffee powder, IT equipment, gas cylinders, frozen lab samples
- Four campus stations, no digital record between any of them
- Missing parcels meant phone calls and guesswork
- Activity based staff with no fixed desk to deliver to
- One scan: parcel logged, recipient matched, routing label printed
- Automatic email notification the moment the parcel arrives
- Smart locker for activity based staff: collection code by email, no coordination needed
- No separate locker system: same scan, same workflow
- Full traceability across all four campus stations
- Missing parcel confirmed in seconds, no phone calls
- Zero manual calls from the service unit
- New staff operational from their first shift
Challenges at Chalmers
Chalmers University of Technology is one of Sweden's leading technical universities, with more than ten thousand students and employees spread across a campus in central Gothenburg. The university's central goods reception handles around 300 inbound parcels on a typical working day. The range of goods is unusually broad for an academic institution: standard consumables and office supplies share shelf space with chemical materials, gas cylinders classified as dangerous goods and frozen biological samples that must move quickly and under controlled conditions.
After arriving at the central goods reception, each parcel needs to be sorted and distributed to one of four separate reception stations across the campus. The university uses its own electric cars to complete those distribution runs, minimising environmental impact. But with no digital handover record between the freight forwarders, the receiving team and the individual stations, confirming that a specific parcel had arrived, or tracking one down when it could not be found, meant phone calls and manual searching.
A further layer of complexity came from how Chalmers staff work. A growing part of the university administration operates on an activity based model, without fixed desks. A parcel addressed to someone working from a different part of campus that day, or from home, had no clear collection path unless someone physically tracked down the recipient. Chalmers needed a delivery option that did not depend on the recipient being in a predictable location.
To handle the volume, the range of goods and the flexibility their staff required, Chalmers decided to replace paper based processes with a digital way of working. The requirement was straightforward: full traceability from the freight forwarder handover through to the final recipient, with no gaps in the record and no manual phone calls.
FP Trax solution
When evaluating options, Chalmers had two firm requirements. The system had to be simple enough for new and temporary staff to learn and operate from their first day in the service unit, with no lengthy training period. And it had to be flexible enough to evolve with the university's operations rather than constrain them.
FP Trax was implemented at the central goods reception as the digital handover point between freight forwarders and the Chalmers service unit. When a parcel arrives, receiving staff scan the carrier tracking number. FP Trax records the item, identifies the recipient from the university's contact directory and generates a label that tells the team which of the four reception stations the parcel is destined for. The parcel moves into the campus distribution run with a full digital record already attached.
At each status update throughout that journey, FP Trax timestamps the item and records its location. The recipient is notified automatically by email the moment their parcel is registered, with clear information about where and when they can collect it. For staff working in an activity based way, FP Trax routes the delivery to a smart locker on campus. The recipient receives their personal collection code in the same notification email and can collect the parcel at any time of day, without coordinating with the service unit or being present at a specific location.
The smart locker integration runs within FP Trax as part of the standard workflow. There is no separate locker management system and no additional step for the receiving team. The same scan that registers the parcel is the same scan that triggers the locker allocation and sends the collection code.
Results with FP Trax
Full traceability now runs from the moment a freight forwarder hands over a parcel to the Chalmers service unit through to the point of delivery at one of the four campus stations. Every handover is logged and timestamped. If a parcel cannot be found, the receiving record tells the team exactly when it arrived and where it was scanned last.
Recipients are notified automatically. The service unit no longer makes individual calls to inform staff that their delivery is waiting. For activity based staff, the smart locker provides a collection point that operates outside reception hours without any additional workload for the team.
New and temporary staff can operate FP Trax from their first shift. The mobile app and web interface are guided and straightforward, and the configuration of the system stays with the administrators rather than requiring IT support for routine changes.
"FP Trax provides excellent technical support and truly listens to their customers’ needs. They are professional and efficient, and we are happy to recommend their service to others"
