International Mail Services User GroupMette Boisen, Chair of the International Mail Services User Group (IMSUG), opened the meeting during the Postal Operations Council in Bern on

Mette Boisen, Chair of the International Mail Services User Group (IMSUG), opened the meeting during the Postal Operations Council in Bern on the 2nd November 2011.

The Postal Technology Centre (PTC) presented a report on its ac-tivities since the last IMSUG meeting, held earlier in 2011. A total of 160 postal operators are now using one of the PTC-developed mail track and trace applications. Since the previous IMSUG meeting, PTC representatives carried out a total of 12 IPS follow-up/training/migration missions in Argentina, Aruba, Brazil, Macao, Curaçao, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, South Africa, Togo and Uganda. There were also three IPS workshops (one in Bangkok during the EMS/Asian-Pacific Postal College Symposium, one in Gabon during the regional Quality of Service workshop, and one in Bern during the PostEurop meeting).

IPSStéphane Herrmann, Technical Account Manager: Mail Products and Services of the PTC, reminded members that the PTC had prepared an annual development plan for the IPS application. He presented the new features of IPS version 5.12, released on 14 October 2011 and added that the scope of IPS version 5.20, scheduled for October 2012, had not yet been defined. The new features would include:

. improved inbound mail processing and better use of related EDI information;

. improved accounting data processing;

. easy creation of paper-based and electronic verification notes.

He indicated that more than half of the users were running IPS version 4.24 or an older version. He encouraged users to migrate to the latest versions of the mail processing applications.The meeting was informed that the PTC had already begun work to redesign IPS Light. The aim was to merge the IPS and IPS Light codes as much as possible in order to minimize maintenance costs and ensure the uniform development of these products in the future. A pilot test for IPS Light version 3 was scheduled for late 2011 with a number of designated operators.

International Mail Services User Group

Address: Postal Technology Centre - Universal Postal Union - Weltpoststrasse 4 - 3000 BERN 15 - SWITZERLANDT +41 31 350 31 11 - F +41 31 352 43 23 - E [email protected]

december 2011English

Cooperation, Exchange and Postal network

The newsletter of the Universal Postal Union’s Postal Technology Centre

57

Customs Declaration System (CDS)Harald Weyerich, Director of the PTC, said the testing of the prototype of implementation of the CUSITM and CUSRSP EDI messages that could be exchanged between Posts and Customs, was successful. The prototype would serve as the basis for the de-velopment of the future global application relating to customs declarations. Members wishing to parti-cipate in the test of the prototype were invited to contact the PTC.

EDI activities The PNG continued to provide the link between de-signated operators’ own mail management systems and the Post*Net network, while offering users new functions. The latest version of this software (PNG 1.06) was released in March 2011. The PTC aimed to migrate all users to PNG 1.06 by the end of 2012.

The next IMSUG meeting will be held during the joint CA/POC session scheduled for February/March 2012.


International Financial Services User GroupLev Razovskiy, Chairman of the International Financial Services User Group (IFSUG), opened the meeting held in Bern during the Postal operations Council on 26th October 2011.

Eugeniusz Tomaszewski, Technical Account Manager of Financial Products and Services of the PTC, reported on the deployment of financial applications developed by the PTC. A total of 171 exchange corridors are currently in production, and 12 new corridors have been opened since the user group’s last meeting.

IFS IFS v4.01, currently being tested, will be released in June 2012. This version will be compatible with the new environments (W7, W2008, Vista, SQL Server 2008, IIS7, and IE8). Online help and user interface in French and Russian will be available for the domestic module and automatic download of exchange rates published by PPSCS will be possible.

IFS LightVersion 2.01 of IFS Light will be available in 2012. The update includes support for the forms and reports of the 2010 Postal Payment Services Agreement, enhancements of token management, a technical upgrade to match the IFS 4.0 source code, automatic down-load of exchange rates published by PPSCS and online help and user interface in Portuguese.

STEFI The update of STEFI v1.52 planned for December 2011, will include a revised version of the online support, including harmonization of terminology with IFS, automatic downloads of exchange rates published by PPSCS and support of multiple interface folders, with file prefixing and prioritization of urgent money orders.

E-commerce is a market that offers Posts strong growth potential for their electronic payments traffic. It will therefore be good for Posts to offer their customers a cash-on-delivery service to allow them to verify merchandise before making a payment. Posts will be particularly well placed in this regard, since, unlike their competitors in the money transfer industry, they will be able to provide end-to-end service by not only delivering parcels, but also ensuring payment. A number of Posts have already set up such a service on the IFS network.

Also at the meeting, Josiane Geoffroy, International Payment Systems Manager with the French Postal Bank, presented the results of the quality of service workshop in Paris during October 2011. Seven indicators, useful in measuring the quality of financial ex-changes, were identified. She invited members to consult her presentation, which is available on the PTC’s website for IFSUG mem-bers, and to provide her with their feedback on the subject. www.ptc.upu.int/priv/tc_ifs/doc.aspx

The next IFSUG meeting will be held in February 2012 during the POC/CA session.

December 2011English



Advanced Electronic Services User Group (AESUG)

The second meeting of the AESUG in 2011 was held on 4 November in Bern, Switzerland.

In his opening address, the chairman, Xueping Li, referred to the good results already achieved by the group in terms of supporting UPU standards development activities and the development of an inter-operability guideline for postal registered electronic mail as defined in the S52 standard. He also mentioned the successful RFID workshop or-ganized by AESUG earlier in November 2011 and the functional description of the e-shopping mi-ni-project 1 which was distributed to members in May 2011.

He stressed that the AESUG structure needed to evolve with the changing times. AESUG would draft its work plan for the period 2013 – 2016 during the next meeting to be held in February 2012 and members were asked to provide input by 31 December 2011.

Priorities identified by AESUG, include: . inter-operability/inter-connectivity applications, . proposals for standards development, and . coordination of the development of e-services applications/tools.

PREMThe PREM (S52) standard was also discussed at the meeting. This standard, besides being a functional standard, also defines com-mon elements which ensure inter-operability between disparate systems that implement these common elements as defined in the S52 standard. A schedule of the PREM inter-operability tests would be prepared and interested participants should contact the AESUG Secretariat at [email protected]

EPCMA four minute video of EPCM application in Macau was shown to participants, demonstrating how EPCM can be used to time stamp and ‘lock’ the integrity of electronic transactions non-refutably in many sector applications – ranging from health/medical, finance, to procurement and employee records.

PostIDIt was agreed at the meeting to form the PostID sub-group within AESUG. Members offering identity management solutions were asked to join the sub-group to advance the technical development of an international postal ID.

.postIt was also agreed to dissolve the AESUG .post sub-group once the .post group (DPG) was formed.

e-shoppingThe e-shopping sub-group successfully completed defining the key elements for the integration of e-shopping and the functional requirements for mini-project 1. Challenges for cross-border shopping still exist, including multiple languages as well as currency and cultural differences in the different regions.

The next meeting of the AESUG will be held during the next POC session in February 2012.




Report of the RFID workshop

The AESUG held a workshop on 1 November 2011 in Bern, Switzerland, en-titled “RFID innovations and applications in the postal sector”. More than 30 par-ticipants representing a total of eleven organizations attended the workshop. It was chaired by Xueping Li, Chairman of the AESUG.

The goal of the workshop was to provide an international forum for RFID techno-logy stakeholders to meet and exchange information and experiences on recent RFID developments, innovations and fu-ture trends, especially with reference to the postal sector.

Keynote sessionRichard Wishart from Delivery Management UK presented a paper on “Identification Solutions” in which he covered a wide range of tracking technologies

Alan Smith from Australia Post gave an overview of “RFID in the postal industry” covering common applications and innovations and showing possible areas where RFID can introduce new revenue streams and assist in postal logistics by enabling highly transparent end-to-end tracking, monitoring of quality of service and optimization of routing.

The presentation by Keld Ole Nielsen from Lyngsoe Systems covered “Experiences from real life RFID implementations in the postal and airport sectors”. Johan Van den Bergh from IPC demonstrated how the automation of delivery time recording provides clear ad-vantages to letter service performance measurement systems using RFID. Craig Alan Repec from GS1 showed how the GS1 system of standards relating to the identification, capture and sharing of item and event data at every significant point in the supply chain is supporting multiple sectors and industries.

RFID applications in the PostWaheed BuSaeed explained how RFID is being used in Saudi Arabia to implement a proof of delivery addressing system. The Saudi Post RFID system is integrated with a mapping and a vehicle tracking system.

Zhen Qingpo and Dr Lu Yue presented a paper on the latest application of RFID in China Post, which covered a wide range of areas. Sander Hart de Ruyter demonstrated a pilot conducted by PostNL in 2007 that could have relevant lessons to postal operators consi-dering deploying RFID for mail sorting and for tracking and tracing large volume mail consignments.

Trends, Global Applications and the FutureThe status of the UPU Global Monitoring System (GMS) project – a system to measure the quality of postal services - was presented by David Lozano from the AIDA Centre and Birahim Fall from the UPU’s International Bureau. Currently GMS is in use by more than 50 countries. GMS users have gained in terms of RFID technology affordability, openness, reliability, inter-operability and availability.

Passive UHF RFID (ISO 18000-6c) is a mature and versatile technology with many options for readers, tags and antennas from a wide range of manufacturers and vendors worldwide. Kerry Krause from Impinj was able to demonstrate how UHF RFID adoption was growing fast across many vertical markets and applications.

Ingrid Sørensen from PostNord and Niels Bjøl from Commotive presented a new low cost wireless sensor network quality measure-ment system for mail collection, fleet management, material handling and domestic mail service performance. It was developed by Commotive and recently implemented by PostNord.



RFID workshop2011

Johnathan Hammell and Stéphane Liuzzo, UPU/PTC experts, conducted an IFS installation and training mission in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan during December 2011. They were supported by two expert from the RTC Moscow, Alexander Mozharov and Michael Sosorev.

It was the first installation of IFS on the Windows server 2008 R2 64. During the installation process, the PTC experts trained the network administrator and operational team from Kyrgyz Pochtassi on IFS management console and web applications.

Kyrgyz Pochtassi now has an IFS production platform and will have to put in place the operational procedure before starting to use IFS International and domestic in production. They will also have train all operational people using test server. They hope to start using IFS as soon as possible.

IFS in Kyrgyzstan


IPS 90

IPS Light 65

PNG 12

IFS 30

IFS Light 11

STEFI 14

Agenda 2012 POST EXPO

Brussels Expo, Brussels, Belgium

18/09/201220/09/2012

2012 Postal Operations Council / Council of AdministrationUPU International BureauBerne (Switzerland)

13/02/201202/03/2012

PTC productsCurrent situation


december 2011English

Two UPU/PTC experts, Johnathan Hammell and Stéphane Liuzzo, visited Indonesia and Malaysia in November 2011 to install STEFI and IFS.

During the STEFI installation process in Jakarta, Indonesia, they presented the latest financial applications proposed by the PTC and Indonesia Post showed interest to compare the capabilities of STEFI versus IFS. The PTC ex-perts also conducted an IFS installation mission in Kuala Lumpur. The Posts of Malaysia and Indonesia are now discussing the terms of the Malaysia / Indonesia corridor and should open it soon.

STEFI in Indonesia and IFS in Malaysia

Documents

International Mail Services User GroupMette Boisen, Chair of the International Mail Services User Group (IMSUG), opened the meeting during the Postal Operations Council in Bern on