The Customer
Postkantoren B.V. is a privately-owned company formed
from the deregulation of the Dutch Post Office. With 3600 counters
in 2100 post offices, it is the largest retail organization in Holland.
Postkantoren offer over 200 products and services including postal
services (selling stamps, handling letters, etc.), travel insurance,
retail banking, ticket services (lottery, theatre, concerts, etc.),
gift vouchers and vehicle registration.
The Challenge
As a private company, Postkantoren faces increased pressures
to maximize efficiency and competitiveness. In order to succeed, the
company defined six critical factors for success: improve time to market
for new products, broaden product portfolio, attract new customers,
increase market share, enhance service levels and reduce costs.
They decided that the best way to achieve these objectives
was through a completely new business concept: they would transform
their post office outlets into modern retail stores. For this, a major
overhaul of their IT infrastructure would be necessary. Their existing
IT system lacked maintainability and expandability; it would not be
capable of supporting the new venture.
Full automation was required, with a user-friendly front-end
on each counter. Furthermore, a fast and reliable infrastructure would
be required for the daily transfer of transaction details to central
management systems.
Postkantoren chose a leading computer company as their
partner for information services and technology. The contract, which
includes hardware, systems and application software, training, and
support services was worth $50 million and would take 2 years to complete.
The partner proposed a solution using standard products
that would provide a stable future and enable migration and expansion
when required.
The new system was based around placing one server running
SCO UNIX in each post office. Each server is connected to Postkantoren's
central management systems via the public X.25 network. These systems
are then connected via a private X.25 network to government administration
databases such as the RDW Vehicle Registration records. Postkantoren
then needed an efficient and costeffective way to connect Point of
Sale (POS) equipment such as cash machines, pinpads, card readers,
weighing scales and printers, all of which have serial RS-232 ports,
to the server in order to automate counter services.
The Solution
The partner's bid involved a number of third-party suppliers,
including Perle, to supply the server-side serial connectivity of the
POS equipment.
Peter Sliedrecht, Logistics Manager at Digital, explains
why Digital chose Perle: “We were impressed
with the quality of products and service from Perle. Their range of
2, 4 and 8 port Multi-port
Serial Cards enabled us to design an extremely competitive solution.
They have support for the required operating systems and are commited
to deliver drivers which might be required in the future.”
“Furthermore, Perle showed the willingness and
the flexibility to adapt their products for the bid, and were able
to dedicate technical support resources whenever needed."
“With over 4000 Perle cards involved in the project,
we needed to be sure that we could rely on the quality and availability
of their support resources for the duration of the project. Through
their worldwide network of technical support offices, including centers
in the UK and France, our engineers can get assistance around the clock.” |
