Visiting Singapore Mail Processing Centre (MPC) @ Eunos Branch

A few weeks back we were being invited to visit Singapore Mail Processing Centre at Eunos Branch by SingPost. It's was a fun and educating trip where we learn how mails are being process after we drop them into the post box. I am sure most of us are not aware of how our mails are being sort through the different process before it reached the receivers. And it was only after tour that we realised there are so many steps and work involved in order to deliver our daily mails despite of the minimum postage of 26 cents stamps that we paid.

Everyday SingPost deal with an average of 3 millions over postal items and although most of the sorting process are being operated by machines with minimum human help but still about 20% or less of the mails with undetectable addresses (not written in English) or bulky items are being manually sorted by human.

In order to provide better services to their customers, SingPost will be going through some major upgrade on their Mailing Process systems in July 2013 to prepared future demands on a better postal services.

Bar Code Sorter reads the ID tag on stamped mail and prints destinations bar code on envelopes at 35,000 per hours.

Corporate Mails takes up about 80% of the daily postal items.

Manual stamping for large and bulky mails with hand written address that could not be fixed and detected by the Bar Code Sorter.

Operators trying to captured the image of the printed address on the mails and sent them out for sorting.

My boy was excited to be able to try out the mail processing system.

Different types of "stamping" such as pre-paid postage, stamps and franking found on the envelopes. 

Just for your information, more than 90% of the basic mails are being delivered on the next day delivery which can be considered as the best service record in the world.

Other than handling basic and corporate mails, each day on an average SingPost has about 14,000 undeliverable mails/items due to wrong or unrecognizable address as well as no trace of return address. These mails/parcels are then held for at least 3 months for the owners to claim. But after the dateline those items which could not be donated to the Red Cross will be automatically disposed without being opened.

For kids who sent their letters to Santa Claus during the month of  November and December, SingPost will still help to send them to the home of Santa Claus in Finland out of goodwill.

Beside those undelivered mails/parcels, we were also amazed on those loose items that being put into the post box each day. On and off SingPost will received loose items like toys, books, wallets, identification cards cards and etc in the post box island wide together with the rest of the mails. SingPost will then consolidated those items and sent them in bulks to the related banks or government departments. 

Photo Credit: SingPost

For your reference SingPost do offers a wide range of options to help customers to deliver their documents and parcels including fast delivery and standard delivery services within Singapore and overseas (over 200 countries). Depending on your items, you could select the type of deliver services accordingly to your preference by referring to the chart above.

A.M. Mail is a postage-paid local delivery service that offers an earlier delivery time for urgent mail. Customers may choose from either Letterbox Delivery (SG$2.60) or Doorsteps Delivery (SG$3.90)to deliver their mail (maximum weight is 300g) in a postage-paid A.M. Drop the envelopes at any of SingPost's posting boxes during the regular mail collection hours and the mail will be delivered to the recipients not later than 11.00am the next working day.

SmartPac is a postage-paid postal service for delivery anywhere in Singapore within the next working day at a fixed price of SG$4.70 which comes with free packaging box for delivery up to 3kg. On top of it, SmartPac also provide an easy online Track And Trace access which allows customer to check the whereabouts of their package 24hrs a week too.

For those who stays around 5 mentioned area stated below, POPStation or "Pick Own Parcel Station" is a new pilot phase system which allows selected customers (vPOST members or customers with SingPost/Speedpost Deliver Advice) to collect their parcels 24hrs a week at the designated  5 POPStation such as:-

- Bishan Community Club
- NUS Stephen Riady Centre
- Sengkang Community Club
- Singapore Post Centre
- Tanglin Post Office

Other than postal services, SingPost also handles Basic Banking Services, Financial Services, Remittance and many other services.On the go, you could also download SingPost Mobile App on Apple iOS and Google Android which will help you to track parcels, locate a post office, find a postal code or calculate postage and etc in just with a few clicks.