With over 25 thousand employees, bpost is the leading national provider for mailing and distribution of parcels in Belgium. According to EU legislation, a contract between the Belgium government and bpost regulates all compliance standards such as the measurement of transmitting times of letters and packages. This compliance is verified by the Belgium Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications or BIPT, which uses standards EN 13850 (letters) and EN 14534 (bulk mail) for its analyses.
Run-Time Shipment Tracking
Under its initiative, between 1998 and 2001, BIPT measured first-class mail or priority shipments. During this time, this government agency implemented a bonus-malus system. This helped in providing evidence of consistent quality achieved, but also, in turn, helped to incentivize proactive improvements of the postal system. Every 3 years since 2002, the tendering of this measurement is awarded to an external market research institute, which is now the responsibility of bpost itself, in agreement with BIPT.
Sensor and Letter Tracking
In 2010, Spectos participated in the tendering process. As of March 2011, Spectos has been maintaining the measurement system for first-class and non-priority mail, such as parcels and regular items. For these measurements, Spectos utilizes private households as well as panelists as test senders and recipients. These participants are recruited by Spectos in-house support center. The panels are organized to coincide with the most important transit routes for bpost (462); these are further broken down by regional delivery centers. 100% of all priority shipments are equipped with RFID transponders and the majority of recipients have RFID readers in their mailboxes. Using this method allows for all mail to be traceable and enables bpost to see any irregularities in their services. Spectos has partnered with Lyngsoe and IPC to integrate the RFID readings directly into the bpost’s monitoring system. In this way, the test data is automatically validated and enriched.
Compliance with EN Standards
bpost quality managers receive daily results and reports on panel status, RFID equipment and target distribution awareness in customized cockpits and dashboards. Monthly and for the entire year, Spectos generates a report that goes directly to the regulatory authority BIPT. To ensure the conformity of the measurement with the applicable European standards, BIPT has the system audited by an independent firm (most recently PwC).
