Singapore Post (SingPost) has announced SmartPost, an initiative to harness near-field communication (NFC), radio frequency identification (RFID), digital imaging and electronic notifications to raise postal service quality and improve operational efficiency. These technologies will be applied throughout the organisation, from collection to sorting, last mile delivery and quality assurance.
Mr Paul Coutts, SingPost’s Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “SmartPost has been designed to help our postal team work better and smarter, enhancing their capabilities and efficiency for the digital age. We are starting at the last mile as this is the most vital and demanding part of our business. At the end of the day, we are only as good as our last mile delivery and this will improve our customers’ overall experience.”
The first phase will focus on delivery of registered mail, SmartPac and other trackable postal items. Postmen will be issued smartphones loaded with a customised postal delivery app. Used in conjunction with NFC and serialised code scanning, the app will help postmen keep track of deliveries made and generate real-time prompts of standard operating procedures. It will also provide operational information on the go about SingPost’s various mail products and services.
Customers can get delivery status updates by SMS or email and receive notifications of where they may collect items whose delivery they have missed. They may also be able to collect the item directly at the post office, using an electronic notice on their mobile device instead of a physical delivery note.
Further solutions to enhance other parts of the postal operation are in the pipeline. Apart from equipping SingPost’s over 1,000 postmen with smartphones, NFC tags will be installed on more than 50,000 delivery and collection points across the island, which would make SingPost one of the first postal organisations in the world to do so. Data of crucial operational activities ranging from posting box collection to letterbox delivery can be obtained, enabling extensive and dynamic analytics for future customer service enhancements and operational work process improvements.
Proof-of-concept and ground testing for SmartPost’s last mile delivery solution were completed earlier this year. Application, system and infrastructure development is underway in preparation for the rollout that will commence later in 2017 and is targeted to be completed by March 2019.
Source: Singapore Post
