An Post blames infrastructure changes for missed targets

An Post has blamed a reconfiguration of delivery systems and changeover to new mail processing technology for a decline in its service levels. According to independent research carried out on behalf of regulator ComReg, the Irish postal operator delivered 84% of domestic mail within one working day during the second quarter of the 2011 year, compared to 87% for the same period in 2010.

Combined with the first quarter’s results, An Post was well behind its targets.

The first half of the year saw a 84% success rate for single piece Next Day Delivery, compared to 85% seen in the same period last year and 10 percentage points behind the 94% target set by ComReg for the Next Day Delivery service.

The year to date saw a 98.6% performance for single piece mail delivered within three working days, including a 98.7% level for the second quarter of 2011. This was behind the 99.5% target set by ComReg.

The research on single mail service reliability was carried out by market research firm Ipsos MRBI, based on a sample of 7,381 test mail items.

Mail flow that saw the largest decrease in performance levels for Next Day delivery from the first quarter of 2011 to the second quarter was outside Dublin going to local destinations, which saw an 86% success rate drop to an 83% level in the three months up to the end of June 2011.

Performances for mail entering the mailstream in all collection methods declined in Q2 2011, the largest being from post offices (87% in Q2 2010, to 82% in Q2 2011), followed by post box collections (86% to 83%) and collection from businesses by one percentage point to 87%.

An Post

An Post insisted on Friday that it has seen five years of positive trends in its overall service quality up to this point.

But, the company conceded that the reconfiguration of a number of its largest delivery units in Dublin temporarily impacted on service levels during the quarter.

And, it said changeover to new generation mails processing technology was another factor in service quality problems.

The company is currently investing EUR 40m in advanced mail processing technology, which it says will sustain the quality of collection, processing and delivery services into the future.

Mail operations director Liam O’Sullivan said it was the largest capital project undertaken by An Post in the last 15 years.

“We’ll continue installing new machinery and software this year and into 2012. The investment we are making will further improve the quality and range of all our mails services,” he said.

O’Sullivan added that domestic service standards were “showing sustained improvement each year”, and that international mail performance was exceeding targets, although the Ipsos figures did not include international mail.