IBM Builds Mail Tracking System
InSourced – RFID to be used to track global post systems News Site
“An electronic watchdog system will soon take a bite out of slow international mail. IBM Business Consulting Services is working with International Post Corporation, (IPC), a cooperative association of 23 national Postal operators from major countries. Together, they’ll set up and manage UNEX, an Internet-based quality measurement system of postal service around the world.
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Key to the project is radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID uses small transponders that communicate to electronic receivers via radio waves. The postal tracking project will send more than a 500,000 letters among 36 countries each year. Most of those test letters will carry an RFID device that will automatically register the letter’s location within postal systems. That will allow IPC to determine precisely how long a letter is in its country of origin, in the recipient country and in transit between two countries. It also allows postal systems to identify and overhaul any bottlenecks.”