Project Arrow Introduction India Post launched a quality improvement project named ‘Project Arrow’ aimed at transforming itself into a vibrant and responsive organisation. The project was launched in April 2008. The quality upgradation is both in terms of improving the core concern areas and look and feel. The improvement is in Post offices not only in urban but also rural areas. Through the project, India Post aims to create a conducive and friendly work environment for the staff as well as the customers of the Post offices.
The focal point of Project Arrow is making the post office the “window to the world” for ‘aam aadmi’. As an outcome of the project, India Post wishes to emerge as a one-stop shop for retail products and offer a single window facility for banking, money remittances and other financial projects and services including social and civic initiatives. So far, 18600 post offices are covered under improvement and monitoring of core operations and 2500 under ‘look and feel’ (courtesy: Annual Report 2012-13).
The objectives of the project are Make a visible, tangible and noteworthy difference in Post offices that matters to the common man Verify and certify progress on ongoing basis using clearly defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each improvement area Set the foundation for a comprehensive transformation of India Post Scope of the project As stated earlier, project arrow adopts a two pronged strategy – ‘Getting the core right’ and ‘Modernize the look and feel’. The scope of the project has been outlined on the following objectives To make Post offices in rural areas, a window for availing services, hitherto confined to urban locales To enable Post offices play a larger role in the social and economic transformation of the country by taking up new roles and challenges
To transform the large manpower into a committed and professional human resource To provide IT enabled services based on the state of the art technology, especially in areas where it matters most To change the look and feel of the Post office to give it a distinct identity of its own Accordingly the scope of the project has been defined to set the improvement areas as below Get the core right Focused efforts to significantly improve four core areas of the Postal service Mail delivery Savings bank Remittances Office service levels Modernize the look and feel Broad approach to upgrade, enhance capacity and quality in Branding Technology Human resource Infrastructure Components The project covers 8 SILOs for improvement, four under the core and four under the look and feel, each having a definite objective.
The objectives are Get the core right Mail delivery
o Ensure same day delivery of mail received and same day
o To provide intimation of delivery, track and trace and the required infrastructure for it
o To design a monitoring mechanism to assess and evaluate the progress made at each stage Savings bank
o Reduction of transaction time at counters and for account transfer/closure and settlement of deceased claim cases, through induction of IT and soft skills training to staff o To ensure adequate availability of forms and other stationery o To educate the members of staff and customers as well on various financial services
o To devise a monitoring mechanism to assess the key performance indicators Remittances o Payment of money orders on the day of receipt and providing web-enabled remittance services
o To remove the bottleneck of cash availability in sub post offices and branch post offices
o To provide the services of instant money order, electronic money order etc., o To ensure necessary infrastructure to meet these objectives Office service level
o Improve customer satisfaction along all parameters from appearance to operations Modernize the look and feel Branding
o Ensure uniform brand hierarchy as well as consistency for all products and services o Designing a new logo for India Post and incorporating the logo in all manuals Technology
o Decide on required hardware, software and connectivity to enable Post Offices to provide all IT enabled services even in rural areas Human resource
o Identify roles and job descriptions for all & design suitable training packages to enhance operational and soft skills of staff Infrastructure
o Develop standardised and consistent interior and exterior blueprint and ensure uniform implementation Approach Project arrow characterises a unique approach in that the ownership rests with the highest levels of the organisation. The key elements of the new approach are Holistic and integrated view – Equal focus on both core Postal operations and look and feel
Standardised approach – Standard targets and improvement measures deployed across the country Central program office and IT-enabled tools for reliable measurement Capability building – On-the-ground training, workshops and professional consultancy Monitoring overview A web based monitoring mechanism is designed to obtain data from the project arrow offices through an automated mechanism which does not require human intervention, through the ‘Accounts MIS client’ installed. We will discuss the data extraction and analysis later.
The data analysed is presented to all the CPMGs through a video conference every fortnight. Data on all key performance indicators are minutely scrutinized and gaps in implementation and remedial measures thereto are discussed in the video conference. Dedicated program offices are set up at the Directorate headquarter and at all the circle headquarters. External audit Improvements in performance level of the of the Post offices of Phase I were independently verified through an external audit on the basis of visits to these offices. Incentive scheme is put in place for the staff of the first three ranked Pos on the basis of the findings of the external audit. Motivations and incentives As a measure of incentive, the staff of 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranked Pos were sent to the APPC, Bangkok for inspirational training on the basis of their performance recorded by KPIs.
The department plans to arrange such motivational training modules on regular basis for the staff to enhance their skills and to provide them exposure to the global best practices. Impact of project arrow Comparative data is available for the 1724 Project Arrow Post Offices covered under Phase-I to IV. The revenue of these Pos has increased from Rs. 1346 crore in 2010-11 to Rs. 1596 crore in 2011-12 with a 18.55% growth. Public footfall (customer visit) in these Pos has also increased which is evident from a 20.39% grow (from 11.86 crore articles in 2010-11 to 14.29 crore articles in 2011-12) in the mail volume of accountable articles booked at these POs.
Data extraction process The data extraction process for calculation of Key Performance Indicators is, as stated earlier, fully automated except for a small amount of data that is manually entered. The Accounts MIS client which is installed in all the Project Arrow offices is either manually run at the end of the day on completion of all transactions and performance of day end or can also be scheduled to run automatically at a specific time which is pre-configured. Data from 95 fields relevant for generating KPI for Project arrow offices is fetched automatically by this application and sent to the central server at CEPT.
The office has to manually enter data of a few items, logging on to the Project Arrow site (ordinary mails received and delivered and collected and despatched). The Accounts MIS client installed in HO collects accounts related data also and sends the same to CEPT Mysore. At the CEPT, the accounts related data is retained and the project arrow data is moved to Project arrow central server for analysis and reporting. The status of the file upload can be checked in the Accounts MIS site.
To access the web portal, connect to India Post website, click Employee corner link and in the page that follows, click the link Accounts. In the login page that follows, enter the username as dop and password as accts. In the page that appears, use the link Project Arrow – Circle wise Files Received to track the status of project arrow files received from each circle. Understanding KPIs The data collected from Project Arrow offices are analysed for the purpose of understanding the performance of the office everyday against 19 key performance indicators.
These key performance indicators and the reporting mechanism provide a snapshot of the performance of the project arrow office on those areas which matter most and could be easily understood by all. Each of the 19 KPIs is designed with a specific logic which is based on transparent
