What happens to the snail mail that you pop into the post box? I had a tour of the Mail Processing Centre at the Singapore Post Centre to find out.
The multi-storied Mail Processing Centre in the Singapore Post Centre in Eunos. Click to view enlarged graphic.
All letters and parcels in Singapore are sorted at the single Mail Processing Centre at Eunos.
Singapore Post Centre in Eunos
In the multi-storied building, an army of housewives and part-time workers operate sophisticated machines that automate the sorting of mail into bite-sized portions for the postmen to deliver.
Each postman is responsible for 25 blocks in his beat.
About 20% of the mail whose delivery addresses cannot be deciphered by the OCR machines are manually sorted by human sorters.
Singapore’s postal service has the highest delivery standards (for basic letters) in the world. Click for enlarged view for details.
More than 99% of all domestic letters are delivered by the next working day.
SingPost’s SmartPac (for items up to 3kg that fit in the box) and A.M. Mail is given priority because of the guaranteed delivery SLA.
That’s the highest service level in the world – even though Singapore Post charges one of the lowest postal rates in the world.
I’m told postal rates has only been increased once in the last 20 years – by a meagre 4 cents.
Undeliverable mail (due to wrong/unrecognisable addresses and lack of return addresses) are held for 3 months for owners to claim.
At the end of the 3 months, donatable items are given to the Red Cross while everything else is disposed.
Letters to “God” above, as well as non-wrapped LP records and soft toys end up in the undeliverable mail basket.
Letters and documents are disposed without being opened.
Much of the mail sorting is automated with sophisticated machines in the MPC.
Many of the undeliverable mail include letters to Santa Claus and “God”.
These are disposed of after three months.
Letters to Santa Claus that are sent in November and December are still sent by SingPost to Rovaniemi in Finland (“home of Santa Claus”) out of goodwill.
Apparently, many people seem to treat post boxes as convenient “Lost-and-Found” boxes.
They pop in wallets and items that they’d found – in the thought that SingPost would return these to their owners based on addresses on documents in these things.
It consolidates and sends the ICs – we saw bundles of these – to the ICA, driving licenses to the LTA, credit cards to the issuing banks, and the wallets themselves to the bin (after three months).
Each postman is responsible for a as many as 25 blocks in his beat.
Singapore Post hosts frequent visits by schools to provide students with an insight to the mail processing workflow.
Come 13 July however, the Mail Processing Centre will be closed to such educational visits for an extensive upgrade of the infrastructure and facilities, and will only be re-opened to the public in 2015.
Oh and one last thing – don’t bother to print “Fragile” or “Handle with Care” on your letters or parcels.
SingPost’s “SLA” for delivery standards. Click to enlarge.
SingPost ignores all these markings – it is impossible to give special treatment to individual letters/parcels among the three million it handles everyday.
The post office that the public visits offers a wide range of services – from traditional parcel forwarding services to currency exchange and remittance.
The onus is on the sender to ensure the contents are properly packed in appropriate protective packing prior to sending them off.
* All photos/illustrations (except the photograph of undeliverable mail) are from SingPost.