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Twenty-one Posts have started using the Universal Postal Union's new Global Monitoring System (GMS) to evaluate the quality of their letter-post service using state-of-the-art RFID technology.



The GMS is a truly global system using affordable RFID technology that is accessible to every Post, from industrialised countries and developing ones.



From now until December 2009, in a first phase of the project, 530 independent panellists from 38 countries will send 24,000 test letters containing RFID tags through 45 postal facilities worldwide. The data collected as the test letters pass through special gates will be transmitted to the UPU and used to help postal operators identify service failures and improve operational efficiency.



Posts participating in this first phase of the Global Monitoring System come from the following countries: Aruba, Chile, Greece, India, Korea (Rep), Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Norway, Peru, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.



The UPU has been developing the Global Monitoring System over the past three years and has managed to secure affordable RFID technology for use by all member countries. Using an open standard, the RFID tags each cost an average of €0.30. Other tags can be as expensive as €20 each.



Spain-based AIDA Centre is supplying the RFID technology, while Germany's Quotas is managing the panellists located worldwide. The Universal Postal Union collects the data through an information management system developed by its Postal Technology Centre in Berne.



Posts will use the Global Monitoring System to measure their service quality against established domestic standards. Improvements to a country’s domestic quality of service are expected to have positive repercussions on international mail as well.



"Improving quality worldwide is a top priority,” says UPU director general Edouard Dayan. “No postal operator today can afford not to have a performance-measuring system in place to monitor the quality of its operations and service in order to improve efficiency, remain competitive and retain customers. And what’s good about the Global Monitoring System is that it is for all postal operators, not just those coming from industrialized countries."



The RFID technology being used for the GMS could eventually have other applications, such as tracking parcels and managing assets such as postal equipment.



The Global Monitoring System provides postal operators a sophisticated tool to help them bring real improvements to their operations and processes. Additional results obtained through the UPU's continuous testing programme, which measures the quality of international letter post service from end to end, will enable the UPU and its member countries to further improve quality.



More than 30 other countries are expected to join the GMS in the second phase of the project from 2010.



Source: UPU