Customer case · Logistics

Colissimo: 300 screens
across its sorting centers

Thirty screens in late 2020, three hundred today. The parcel delivery arm of the French postal service shows safety instructions, truck loading status and driver information across its sorting centers — from software installed on its own servers.

Colissimo logo
Parcel delivery · La Poste

The deployment in brief

One site in late 2020, the sorting centers of France today

Colissimo is the parcel delivery service of La Poste, the French postal operator, and has been running since 1989. Its sorting centers work around the clock: thousands of parcels move through them every hour, trucks pull up to the docks all day long, and the teams that keep it all moving do not spend their day in front of an office screen.

To carry internal communication all the way to those workstations, Colissimo chose EMITY in late 2020. About thirty screens on a first site, then a gradual rollout across the sorting centers of France, up to the 300 screens in service today. The software runs on the company’s own servers and Windows workstations, inside its own IT environment.

300

screens in service

30

screens at go-live

2020

year of the first installation

Excellence

the plan they chose

The starting point

Inside a sorting center, information struggles to travel

Before talking about screens, it helps to look at the floor. Three constraints show up in every warehouse and every parcel hub — and they are what explains the choice Colissimo made.

Teams without a workstation

A sorting operator, a forklift driver, a truck driver: nobody checks their inbox between two waves. A memo sent by email reaches only part of the workforce, and rarely at the moment it matters.

Three shifts that never meet

Morning, afternoon, night. A notice pinned up in the break room at 10 a.m. does not have the same shelf life as an instruction that has to land before every shift start — and the paper version stays on the wall long after it expired.

Distance and noise

A sorting center is measured in hundreds of yards, with machinery that drowns out the voice. Information has to read at a glance, while walking, right where the work happens — not only in an office at the far end of the building.

On the floor

Three needs, three screen locations

The EMITY software suite serves internal communication inside the sorting and loading areas. Three uses were identified at the start — safety, loading operations and driver information — and they are what shaped where the screens went.

Wall screen showing a safety instruction above a parcel sorting line

On the sorting lines: the instruction of the day

Protective equipment, marked walkways, moving forklifts: safety is restated where the risk actually is, in large type, and it is updated from a browser the day the instruction changes.

Internal communication

Screen showing departure time and loading progress at a dock

At the docks: loading status, pulled from the intranet

The departure time and the loading progress come from the Colissimo intranet and appear at the dock concerned. The data already existed; it now shows up where it changes the work in progress.

Operational data

Truck driver reading the evening departure board in a break room

In the break room: what saves a round trip

Assigned docks, evening departure windows, maneuvering instructions: drivers find what they need on arrival, without walking to an office. This is the location the original page called “strategic information”.

Field information

Running the fleet

One dashboard for the whole network

  • ✓A shared template reused by every new site that comes online
  • ✓Content built in the EMITY built-in editor — and, if your teams already use them, in Canva or Adobe Express
  • ✓Intranet pages displayed as a zone of the screen, refreshing on their own
  • ✓Scheduling ahead of time, by site, by screen and by time slot

What decided the choice

Software installed at the customer, not just reachable from a browser

Colissimo was looking for a partner able to offer a digital signage solution compatible with the security standards of La Poste’s infrastructure. That point, more than any feature list, is what opened the project.

The answer came down to one thing: the software was installed inside the customer’s own IT environment. The display server lives at Colissimo, content never leaves it, and fleet management stays local. EMITY supports both models; here is what separates them.

Hosted by EMITY Installed on your side (the Colissimo choice)
Where content lives On EMITY servers, in France On your servers, inside your information system
What crosses the network An outbound connection to the EMITY platform Nothing has to leave: screens and server talk internally
Updates Applied by EMITY, with nothing to do on your side Scheduled with your IT department, in your maintenance windows
What you need A browser A host machine and a security review, like any internal application
Typical case A multi-site network that wants to move fast A regulated or tightly segmented information system

A word from the engineering team

On this kind of installation the work does not stop once the software is in place: the content sources have to be connected, what shows at the different points of the site has to be synchronized, and every screen has to receive what concerns it. That is the job of the EMITY engineering team, and that is what was done at Colissimo.

The hardware

Nothing to replace: the signage sat on the existing fleet

This is often the first thing that stalls a signage project on an industrial site — the fear of having to buy screens all over again. Here the hardware was chosen before the software was.

The screens were already chosen

The Colissimo technical teams had selected their screens before they picked a software vendor. EMITY supports every screen manufacturer, so the fleet did not have to be rethought to carry the signage.

Windows workstations did the playback

Digital signage comes down to two building blocks: a piece of software and a screen. The computers already on site carried the playback, with no extra player — a player only becomes necessary when the screen cannot run anything by itself.

The rollout followed the house rules

Machines approved by the IT department, installation inside the internal perimeter, day-to-day operation by the company’s own teams: the project fitted into existing procedures instead of asking for new ones.

How it went

From 30 to 300 screens, in stages

A multi-site fleet does not go up in one go. The Colissimo fleet was built site after site, each one reusing what the previous one had proven.

01

One site, about thirty screens

In late 2020 the rollout starts on a single site, with the three uses identified up front. Wide enough to be representative, short enough to be judged.

02

The IT security review

Installing inside La Poste’s information system clears the company’s security requirements. That step is what everything else depends on.

03

Connecting the content sources

The EMITY engineering team hooks up the intranet pages and synchronizes what has to show at the different key points of the site.

04

Rollout, site after site

The next sites reuse the template that was validated. The fleet grows gradually to the 300 screens in service, under one contract and one training session.

And for you

What this rollout says to any logistics site

A parcel hub, a distribution warehouse, a production plant or a trucking depot share the same constraints: teams who are not sitting at a computer, shifts that follow one another, long buildings. What worked at Colissimo carries over: screens placed at the workstations, content driven from one place, and a hosting model chosen to fit the house rules.

Across its whole installed base, EMITY connects more than 7,000 screens for more than 1,000 customer accounts, in more than 20 countries, with the support of more than 130 certified reseller partners.

Construction and industry

Safety, production, shop-floor instructions: the uses closest to logistics, on the construction and industry page.

Transport

Passenger information, operations, depots: the transport sector and its scattered sites.

Multi-site companies

Reception, break room, workshop, meeting room: digital signage for companies, from 1 to 1,000 screens.

Frequently asked questions

The questions this case study raises

Yes, and that is what Colissimo chose. E-MANAGER comes in a version hosted by EMITY and in a version installed inside your own information system, on your machines and behind your firewalls. In that second case, content and user accounts stay with you: nothing has to leave the company network for a screen to light up.

No. At Colissimo, the technical teams had already selected their screens and their Windows workstations before EMITY came in, and the rollout was built on top of them. Digital signage comes down to two building blocks, a piece of software and a screen — a separate player is only needed when the screen cannot run anything by itself.

An EMITY screen displays an internal web page the same way it displays an image or a video: the loading-status page published on the intranet becomes a zone of the screen and refreshes on its own. The EMITY engineering team handles the connection, as it did to synchronize content across the different points of a Colissimo platform.

A site is equipped at its own pace. Colissimo started in late 2020 with about thirty screens, then extended the rollout to the other sorting centers in France until it reached 300 screens. Every new site reuses the same content template, which reduces the next installation to a configuration step.

Your own teams, from a browser. A site manager builds a message in the EMITY built-in editor — and, if your teams already use them, in Canva or Adobe Express — then sends it to the screens of their choice. Head office keeps control of what plays everywhere, and each site adds what concerns it.

That was the condition that opened the project at Colissimo: the solution had to meet the security standards of La Poste’s infrastructure. Installing inside the customer’s own information system, with no outbound connection required, is precisely the answer to the strictest security reviews.

Let’s talk about your screens

Does your site, your plant or your network of locations look like this one? A demonstration runs remotely, on your own use cases, and the trial gives you time to judge on the evidence.