Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Italian Postal Service Enhances Decision Making for Increased Competitive Advantage
Overview
Country or Region:Italy
Industry:Government; Postal Services
Customer Profile
Poste Italiane provides postal services and financial services across Italy. It operates 13,500 post offices and distributes mail using 5,776 delivery offices, 41,000 vehicles, and 15 daily flights.
Business Situation
The organisation wanted a new monitoring system to provide managers at the central office with real-time production information from geographically distributed automated postal centres that sorted mail.
Solution
An automated postal system, based on Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2002, integrates key management information from across the company and presents it to employees at head office in real time.
Benefits
Better business decision making
Greater insight across business units
Support for complex operations
Data presented according to specific employee requirements
New opportunities for staff training / “[The system]… provides all those involved in the production process with information relating to these complex operations. As a result, they can make the best possible management decisions based on accurate, real-time performance data.”
Paolo Sardoni, SAC Project Leader, Poste Italiane
Poste Italiane provides postal and financial services across Italy. It operates 13,500 post offices and distributes mail using 5,776 delivery offices, 41,000 vehicles, and 15 daily scheduled flights. In 2002, the organisation launched a technology renewal programme called Nuova Rete to computerise its management infrastructure. One key element of this initiative was the Automated Postal System, or Sistema Automazione Corrispondenza (SAC), which is based on Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2002. Using the solution, Poste Italiane integrates key management and performance data from outlying sorting offices with centralised SAP management modules. Managers now gain key business data in a range of personalised formats. As a result, they make better business decisions, increasing the company’s competitive advantage in the face of industry deregulation.
Situation
The Poste Italiane Group provides postal, dispatch, and logistics services for businesses and individuals throughout Italy. In addition, it offers a range of financial services, including banking and insurance. The group operates 13,500 post offices acrossItaly, 16 automated mail sorting centres, and 62 operational postal centres. Mail is distributed with support from 5,776 delivery offices, 41,000 vehicles, and 15 scheduled aircraft flights each day.
To enhance the efficiency of business processes and ensure the best possible management decision making, Poste Italiane embarked on a technology renewal programme called Nuova Rete. This project aimed to improve real-time supervision of production units and consolidate the organisation’s operational structure. Part of the programme involved computerising the organisation’s entire management structure and consolidating 108 sorting offices into 23 automated postal centres and 36 manual sorting facilities.
Fundamental to the Nuova Rete initiative was the Automated Postal System, or Sistema Automazione Corrispondenza (SAC). Its objective was to increase the efficiency of automated postal centres, reduce manual sorting, and convert production units into technologically advanced facilities where sophisticated machinery would process large volumes of mail efficiently.
To deliver increased efficiency, SAC needed to unblock the flow of performance data to head office managers. As it stood, the decentralised post collection and distribution network of offices was beneficial from a logistical standpoint, but hindered management access of up-to-the-minute performance data. For managers, this information was crucial for the years ahead when key business decisions would determine the organisation’s success in a deregulated marketplace.
Paolo Sardoni, SAC Project Leader, Poste Italiane, says: “By implementing SAC, we hoped to achieve a better view of our business activities at distributed geographical locations. We wanted to increase overall operational efficiency, preparing us for the imminent liberalisation of the postal sector. In 2004 alone, we sorted around 7 billion items of post, illustrating the scale of the task we face each day and demonstrating the extent of our requirement for technologies that improve operational efficiency.”
Solution
The Poste Italiane Logistical Operations Division worked with the Central Information and Communication Technology Division to develop the SAC system, which is based on Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2002. The system integrates the flow of information among plant supervision systems at outlying offices with centralised SAP modules for logistics and planning. Business data is then presented to managers at the company’s operational centre.
The technology is based on a multi-level architecture that includes a logistical planning module, network control module, and tools for managing sorting facilities. The solution is highly scalable, ensuring the system can handle significant changes in demand. In addition, information from sorting facilities across the company can be processed and presented to managers in real time, while planning is integrated with all central and outlying logistics systems.
Sardoni says: “Using the Microsoft system, managers gain an instant view of all production information at different levels across the group. Access to this data helps them resolve any performance issues quickly and easily, and helps to streamline planning for future logistics or sorting requirements. The overall result of the new technology is that we spend less time working on what happened yesterday, and more time on our current activities and business challenges.”
The development of SAC began in 2004 and principal execution modules and the strategic planning module went live in 2005. During 2006, the solution will be extended to include additional operational modules and rolled out across the country. Sardoni says: “The plan was always to roll out the solution gradually, rather than choosing a ‘big bang’ deployment. In this way, we have avoided a severe impact on our day-to-day operations, which are extremely diverse and complex.”
To test the system in a sufficiently complex environment, Poste Italiane implemented the first modules in medium-sized offices with around 800 workers. Following successful completion of field testing, SAC is now being rolled out to the largest operational units.
Benefits
Enhanced Management Decision Making in a Complex Operating Environment
Using the SAC system with BizTalk Server 2002, Poste Italiane has streamlined business processes in a highlycomplex operating environment. For management, it has removed the headache of making important decisions based on incomplete business data. Their day-to-day effectiveness is significantly improved with real-time insight across activities at all operational levels.
Sardoni says: “Compared with other companies, we face a range of sector-specific variables that make the management process unusually complex. Customers include companies that move large quantities of mail, as well as individuals that want to send parcels, letters, and postcards. These variations result in logistical complexities that have made it difficult to forecast demand flows.
“SAC is an analytical IT infrastructure that provides all those involved in the production process with information relating to these complex operations. As a result, they can make the best possible management decisions based on accurate, real-time performance data.”
Support for Specific Employee Roles
Company-wide, productivity has increased as a result of the new SAC system. With tailored, real-time views of business data, employees from management down to mail sorters are making better business choices.
Sardoni says: “SAC structures information according to employees’ specific needs. In this way, it delivers benefits to everyone, from those making deliveries and sorting mail to department managers. Key information is delivered using customised indicators, reports, and management dashboards that summarise key data and make it fast and easy to work with and understand.”
New Worker Opportunities for Staff Training
Staff have gained increased opportunities to develop new skills, adding value to themselves personally as well as obtaining a richer day-to-day experience at work. The impact of SAC has been that many Poste Italiane employees are learning to become ‘super users’.
Sardoni says: “Some of our people will be trained to manage the technology tools that control production, mail sorting equipment, and the centralised IT platform. These employees will ultimately drive the evolution of our IT-based products and services and make significant contributions to our success in the new, deregulated market.”
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