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CLIENT CASE STUDY

Thai Post: Integrated postal counter automation system

Accenture worked with the Thai Post to upgrade the overall performance of its post offices nationwide.

Overview

The Thai Post is a division of the Communications Authority of Thailand, a state enterprise under the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Thai Post is composed of more than 23,000 employees, and operates more than 1,200 post offices throughout Thailand. Its revenue for FY1999 was 6 billion Baht, an increase from FY1998 of 5.7 billion Baht.

In 1999, the Thai Post delivered more than 1.1 billion domestic letters, 96 million international letters, 8.3 million domestic parcels and 340,000 international parcels.

Opportunity
The Thai Post decided to upgrade the overall performance of its post offices nationwide and to increase the efficiency of the control system in the headquarters. With a total investment of 1,955 million Baht, the integrated postal counter automation system will upgrade all 1,200 postal offices by 2001.

This is a radical change for the Thai Post and for all citizens of Thailand, since counter services in the past were primarily operated manually.

Solution

Accenture and Canada Post International worked together to implement Canada Post's Retail Over-the-counter Support System (ROSS) application for postal automation.

The joint team was responsible for adapting the ROSS application to fit with the business and technical requirements of the Thai Post. This work included:

  • Facilitating the gathering of business requirements;

  • Configuration of the ROSS system, including modifications to ROSS program code (12 modules) to meet local business requirements;

  • Replatforming of the database system from SQL Anywhere to Oracle 8 database;

  • Providing technical and development support during and post go-live;

  • Assisting in data conversion and rollout approach planning; and

  • Knowledge transfer.

Technical Details
The ROSS application system development work was performed using:

  • Visual Basic,

  • Visual C++,

  • Oracle 8,

  • Oracle Enterprise Manager, and

  • Visual SourceSafe.​

The ROSS postal automation system at the postal offices ran Windows NT on the server, and Windows NT at the client over a TCP/IP network.

Each post office server is connected via dial-up line to the central system, which collects operational and financial information from the servers on a daily basis.

Results

Our efforts helped the client to achieve its objectives. The following benefits have been realized:

  • Ability to provide faster, more flexible over-the-counter postal services to customers;

  • Positioned the Thai Post for growth from both a technical and business infrastructure perspective; and

  • Provided better operational and financial control over counter operations, and centralized transaction information to assist in long-term planning.

Industry & topics highlighted

Technology