Thailand Post will soon be more than just a post office. It will be offering a range of one-stop services for business and individual customers.

Woodtipong Moleechad, chief operations officer for the company, said the agency would utilise new information technology to upgrade its "back-end" infrastructure in ways that will improve existing services and provide new ones.

It will also invest aboutd Bt500 million to implement "enterprise resource planning" to increase productivity.

"Customers in the near future will be able to pay for almost any business transaction at the post office, which has 1,178 branches nationwide," said Woodtipong.

The firm is negotiating with banks to offer business transactions at post office counters, where customers will also be able to deposit and withdraw money. Kiosks will be installed to provide existing and new services.

"The new services will make life comfortable for customers. They will no longer need to go to a bank. They will just go to the post office branch near their home. They can do any transaction without transport," said Woodtipong.

The firm will provide a "warehouse management system" as a new service for large organisations, using RFID (radio frequency identification) technology.

He said the new system would help staff reduce the time customers' products are

in storage before being sent to the destination, as the RFID readers will enhance efficiency.

"We now use a bar-code system to provide services. When customers want to send five boxes we have to use the bar-code reader five times. The RFID reader will scan the boxes more quickly," said Woodtipong.

The RFID tag will record information such as who owns the products, the date, time and destinations and how many product items there are.

With the system, the company will be able to provide tailor-made services to large businesses so they can reduce the cost of logistics. The company will allow SMEs to use postal services in greater volumes at special prices, promoting the use of e-commerce locally and internationally.

"The new services will not only reduce the time involved but will also increase accuracy, as it is able to reduce human error," said Woodtipong.

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation