14-02-2017

Computerization at the Post Office

The local post office receives an average of 60 customers per hour who seek various services like purchase of stamps and
stationery, savings bank (SB) and “accountable” services like registration, speed post, money orders and telegrams. Of the
60, an average of 10 come for SB transactions and 25 for accountable services. The remaining 25 come exclusively for
stamps and stationery.
Around 15 customers, who come for accountable services, usually stand in line thrice: once to find out what they need to
do and the value of the stamps needed; then to buy the stamps and finally to do the accountable transaction. About half
of the customers coming to the post office for accountable transactions and SB invariably have requirements of stamp
and stationery.
The post office currently has one SB counter, two counters for accountable transactions, and one counter for stamps and
stationery. The average service time in the SB counter, accountable service counters, and the stamp and stationery
counter is three minutes, two and a half minutes and one minute respectively.
The postmaster, usually observed the stamps and stationery line to be the longest. However, he got maximum complaints
from the people who came for accountable transactions. While he was wondering what he could do to improve customer
service, especially in terms of reducing waiting times, he received a letter from the superintendent of post offices. The
letter indicated that this post office had been selected as one of the post offices for computerization.
Computerization was expected to enable the counters engaged in accountable transactions to reduce the average service
times from two and a half minutes to one and a half minutes. It would also eliminate the need for customers to buy
stamps for the accountable transactions.

To Do
• Process Identification
• Process Map
• For any one process – Process Profile Worksheet and SIPOC