CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

According to (Canada Postal Guide, 2016), mail tracking can be defined as the receiving, screening, sorting, opening, routing, controlling, and distributing of incoming mail. It can also be seen as the collecting, sorting, and distributing of paperwork coming from within the building or area serviced by the Mail Room; and the collecting, preparing, sorting, controlling, and dispatching of outgoing mail. The Mail Room must maintain the flow of mail, documents, files, and other paperwork in three channels:

• From outside to offices within the department or agency;
• From office to office within the building or area being serviced; and
• From offices within the department or agency to outside individuals or

Organizations.

The Mail Room must be the first line of defense to apply secure measures to all incoming mail. The activities of organizations and institutions have great importance in the business, social, and economic functions of our society. These activities usually depend on the efficiency and effectiveness of the Mail Room services to achieve the many objectives of government. Each day, a vast amount of mail is sent and received. This mail, in addition to the time and stationery required to compose, type, and sign it, costs money In larger departments, the size of the operation will warrant a mail manager. In smaller organizations, the function may be linked to other responsibilities. The responsibilities of a Mail Room Manager will include all the mail handling operations and the organization and control of the messenger delivery services. To carry out these responsibilities, the individual should have good staff management capabilities and should be brought into departmental development and training programmes. While the individual will be assisted by supervisors in the performance of the actual mailroom operations, such managerial responsibilities as the co-ordination of the various sections, the planning of the workflow, the devising, writing and issuing of instructions and the introduction of procedural methods will rest with the manager. In addition, the ability to establish and conduct training programmes for their staff will determine to a great extent the continuous efficiency of the mail room service. The manager must entertain an overall knowledge of all operations, e.g. the processing priorities for departmental mail and the routing schemes for the various types of mail (Canada Postal Guide, 2016).

Developing a computerized mail management system is aimed at making easy the sorting and retrieval of information of incoming mails. The meta data of every mail received is captured into the system such as the name of the sender, the name of the receiver, the date it was sent, etc. This information is very important for administrative verification of mail received. The system will also aid the user to maintain record of mails that have been dispatched. The manual system of managing this information is time consuming, there is therefore need for an automated system to help the mail manager, clerk or supervisor of the mail room of every organization particularly those that receive mails on a daily basis. The system will also enable the institution to be accountable for mails received.

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