The Global Monitoring System has been under development by the UN's Universal Postal Union (UPU) for the past three years. Posts will use the System, the first phase of which began this week and continues until December, to measure their service quality against established domestic standards.

Improvements to a country's domestic quality of service are expected to have positive repercussions on international mail as well, the UPU noted in a news release.

“Improving quality worldwide is a top priority,” said UPU Director General Edouard Dayan. “No postal operator today can afford not to have a performance-measuring system in place to monitor the quality of its operations and service in order to improve efficiency, remain competitive and retain customers.

“And what's good about the Global Monitoring System is that it is for all postal operators, not just those coming from industrialized countries,” he added.

The System uses radio frequency identification (RFID), a technology that transmits the identity, in the form of a unique serial number, of an object or person wirelessly, using radio waves. It is designed to enable readers to capture data on tags and transmit it to a computer system - without needing a person to be involved.

From now until December, 530 independent panellists from 38 countries will send 24,000 test letters containing RFID tags through 45 postal facilities worldwide.

The data collected as the test letters pass through special gates will be transmitted to the UPU and used to help postal operators identify service failures and improve operational efficiency, according to the agency.

Participating in the first phase of the System are postal services in Aruba, Chile, Greece, India, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Norway, Peru, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

More than 30 other countries are expected to join the System in the second phase of the project from 2010.#