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Monday, March 21, 2016

UPU News:- Press releases Speeches In the press Quality of Service Fund boosts postal performance in developing countries

The Universal Postal Union’s Quality of Service Fund (QSF) is helping the postal sector in many developing countries achieve significant improvements in performance, including recently in Indonesia, Kenya, Thailand.

During the 2013-2015 period alone, the QSF board of trustees, which manages the fund, approved some 114 project applications with a value of 30 million USD.
A project in Thailand to improve mail security involved installing CCTV surveillance. QSF-financing enabled Thailand Post to place 108 security cameras and related systems in post offices and other facilities across the country, said Ariya Thongbai, vice president of international business development at the Post.
“Security and quality of service are very important for us,” she said, noting that the Post sometimes faces losses from pilferage or theft. She said these incidents were uncommon but potentially damaging for the Post’s public image.
“If the complaints are posted, in particular in the social media, it will lessen the credibility of the image of Thailand Post”, she said.
Success was measured by indicators including a reduced number of complaints following the implementation of the CCTV systems, she said. After one year, complaints had fallen by about 17 per cent, possibly as a result of reduced theft.

Investing in quality

The QSF finances projects designed to improve inbound letter-mail flows, bolstering national postal services and making international mail faster, more reliable and secure.
The lion’s share of financing stems from terminal dues, the UPU remuneration system that ensures that when one Post sends a letter-post item to another country, the destination Post is paid for processing and delivering that item. Other sources include money from investments and voluntary contributions.
In another project in Indonesia, the goal was to improve the efficiency of sorting operations. Vertical sorting frames were introduced in mail processing centres of major cities, including Jakarta, with financial support from QSF, said Agus Handoyo, director of mail and parcels at Pos Indonesia.
The project has helped speed up mail delivery by eliminating the repeated sorting of letters, said Handoyo. Formerly, mail was sorted three times manually: once for the region, again for a group of postmen and finally for each individual letter carrier.
The vertical sorting frames save time by allowing mail to be sorted just once, Handoyo explained, resulting in operations that are more efficient and cost-effective with deliveries now starting earlier.

Faster deliveries

In another project, Posta Kenya was able to speed up delivery. This involved purchasing several vehicles transporting mail between the airmail unit of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the office of exchange some 20 km away.
Previously, vehicles would go to the airport to pick up mail from arriving planes but would have to wait two or three hours until other planes also landed so the mail could be brought all at once, Eric Langat, deputy director of logistics and facilities management at Posta Kenya, said.
The extra trucks allow the operator to enhance delivery standards by making that trip more often, helping to compensate for issues including lost time due to heavy traffic.
“The more visits to the airport, the faster the delivery,” said Langat.
The addition of extra vehicles has allowed the Post to increase its dispatches to and from the airport from four to six daily, he added.
These Nairobi-area operations are an important link for northeast Africa, since many incoming flights carry mail for neighbouring countries, such as Uganda and Tanzania.
“We are very grateful to the QSF board,” he said, noting that procuring trucks for this project would be difficult otherwise due to scarce resources. “The programme itself is very valuable,” said Langat.
The QSF programme was launched in 2001. At the end of 2015, the fund contained 64 million USD for future projects.

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