In this study, we consider the Turkish postal delivery system and develop an effective solution approach for the combined hub location and routing problem where the location of hub nodes are determined, the nonhub regional postal offices are allocated to the hubs, and the optimal set of routes are determined for each hub. Since the realized post-routing distances between origin-destination pairs are different from those used in the hub-location model, we develop an algorithm that finds the route-compatible hub configuration and allocation paths. The algorithm is the one that iterates between the hub-location phase and a routing phase. Our strategy consists of updating the distances used in the first phase in order to produce a solution that contains the cognition of routes. Some special structures in the routed network are also identified and used for improving the solution. Computational experience is reported.

M.Tech. (Operations Management) / This study entails and discusses the concepts of quality and performance management in the postal and related services. Quality and Performance Management fundamentally form part of critical strategic objectives and goals every organization set itself to successfully achieve; the practice of quality has been around for a very long time and has become a widespread phenomenon interpreted and implemented differently in the industry while performance management emerged in the 1970’s and grew to be appreciated with time bringing measures to quantify individual and organizational results. This study was aimed at determining the current and past scenarios in the South African Post Office (SAPO) with regards to the organization’s Quality and Performance Management efforts with the view of recommending improvements to be adapted and implemented for strategic business growth. The study was conducted at Capemail and Securemail which are two of other SAPO’s operational divisions that processes and conveys large volumes in clients’ mail and parcels. SAPO is in the process of organizational transformation where a number of projects are being implemented including Change Management, ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004, Total Operations Management Solutions, Productivity Engineering and others where most of these projects failed to yield the intended value. The techniques deployed for the study involved conducting observations in both Mail Centres, conducting informal interviews and distributing questionnaires for data collection; data was further scrutinized and analyzed with Statkon’s consultancy and statistical techniques were exploited to analyze it into meaningful information. The actual statistical tools used for analysis involved descriptives, factor analysis, normalities, comparisons and correlations; these were suffice to produce reliable and accurate data for the results of the study. The objectives of the study was achieved in that management need to seriously pay attention on factors such as empowering employees, enforcing and emphasizing the culture of good quality practice, adapting advanced project implementation frameworks benchmarking with industry competitors, standardizing processes and activities, encouraging the culture of continuous improvement, provision of support to operational requirements financially and otherwise, upgrading technology, viewing performance management from a holistic perspective and linking it directly with day to day activities of the organization and objectives.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to determine the market value of the company Česká pošta, s.p. as at 31.12.2010 assuming it maintains its obligation to provide existing services. The structure of the thesis has a form of an expert opinion and is divided into five main chapters. It starts with an overview which is followed by the strategic and financial analysis, and analysis and prediction of generators of value. Based on this information the complete financial plan for the years 2011 -2017 has been set up. The value of the company is determined by two methods: DCF Entity and market comparison.

The main goal of the diploma thesis "Postal services within the internal market of the EU" is to evaluate the scope of liberalization of postal services in the member states of the EU. It describes the position of national postal providers on their home market. The second goal of the thesis is to compare the company (business) strategies used by the postal operators. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter describes the theory of services, the theory of liberalization, the theory of postal services and the legislation of the EU (focusing on postal services). The second chapter describes the situation on the postal market within the member states. The third one interprets the success of the strategies of postal companies and the current situation regarding liberalization. The fourth chapter focuses on vision of future development of the postal market.

The subject of the thesis is the optimization of the branch network of Česká pošta company. Since 1th January 2013 the post market in the Czech Republic is fully liberalized, thus Česká pošta ensures the duties given by the post licence in a fully competitive environment without previous advantage of a postal reservation. For this reason in the thesis there are submitted possible solutions of ensuring the branches operation by the contractual relations with a suitable partner, which would mean observance of legal duties together with the ensuring of effective operations of the post offices.

Submitted by Tatiana Lima (tatianasl@ufba.br) on 2015-04-13T19:14:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Lorenzo, Mauricio Fortes Garcia.pdf: 482534 bytes, checksum: 91ee8764892a571666694f87e7225bdf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Tatiana Lima (tatianasl@ufba.br) on 2015-05-05T19:36:46Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Lorenzo, Mauricio Fortes Garcia.pdf: 482534 bytes, checksum: 91ee8764892a571666694f87e7225bdf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-05T19:36:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lorenzo, Mauricio Fortes Garcia.pdf: 482534 bytes, checksum: 91ee8764892a571666694f87e7225bdf (MD5) / O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar as principais limitações impostas pelo modelo regulatório do setor postal brasileiro na universalização dos serviços postais no Brasil, em comparação com o observado em outros países do mundo. Tal pesquisa se justifica pelo fato da legislação postal brasileira encontrar-se em desconformidade com as novas relações jurídicas e econômicas atuais e pela possibilidade de contribuir para a discussão acerca de um novo marco regulatório compreensivo de uma nova geração de serviços e da atuação de novos players. Trata-se de pesquisa descritiva e exploratória, que se divide em duas etapas: identificação das características do modelo regulatório do setor postal brasileiro e esclarecimento de como o citado modelo limita a universalização dos serviços postal no Brasil. Os resultados encontrados permitem inferir que especificidades do modelo regulatório nacional, como a ausência de instrumentos de controle efetivo do Estado (que mitiguem os efeitos da conduta autointeressada dos dirigentes), bem como de instrumentos de controle social, (que permitam à sociedade civil e o cidadãousuário, reivindicarem seus direitos associados à qualidade, aos preços e à acessibilidade dos serviços postais), limitam a universalização dos serviços postais no Brasil. The present study aims to analyze the main limitations imposed by the regulatory model of the postal sector in the Brazilian universal postal services in Brazil, compared with that observed in other countries. Such research is justified by the fact that the Brazilian postal legislation find themselves in disagreement with the new current economic and legal relations and the possibility to contribute to the discussion about a comprehensive new regulatory framework for a new generation of services and the performance of new players. It is descriptive and exploratory research, which is divided into two stages: identifying the characteristics of the regulatory model of the Brazilian postal sector and clarification of how the aforementioned model limits the universal postal service in Brazil. The results allow us to infer that the specific national regulatory model, as the absence of effective control instruments of the state (to mitigate the effects of the conduct of selfinterested leaders), as well as instruments of social control (allowing you and the civil society citizen-user associated with quality, prices and affordability of postal services), limited to universal postal services in Brazil.

This diploma thesis focuses on the issue of oral and written communication through the groups of couriers, who mediated between smaller royal dowry town Dvůr Králové nad Labem and its own villages as well as another distant locations situated in another dominion. Diploma thesis applies to region called Podkrkonoší in the advanced Early Modern Period, describes and analyses some of the preserved archival primary sources of knowledge dedicated to the courier services in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. It mentions the enviroment in which the gateke- epers and other couriers fulfilled their services. This thesis attempts to define the relationship between the distance and courier's income in Dvůr Králové nad Labem's domain and outside of it. In the context of diverse contents of oral and written messages the thesis mentions sever- al other topics, for example the actual filling work of corvée (or statute labour), showing by gatekeepers the way to hussar-soldier at surveying, transport of beggars and vagabonds and even the beginning of postal services in this area. Working method is based on detailed archival probe into rarely preserved municipal bookkeeping, especially into records of gate- keeper's courier services and records of other settled couriers both from the year 1740 and 1768. Results are presented...

This study aims to provide an empirical investigation of Postal Services pricing in Turkey by way of computing Ramsey prices and examining the sensitivity of Ramsey prices to changes in demand and cost parameters. In this study, the Ramsey pricing problem is stated as maximizing a welfare function subject to the Post Office attaining a certain degree of profitability. The conditions necessary for the Post Office to be able to price efficiently have implications for Ramsey pricing. We estimate demand functions and cost structure of letters and express mail using data from Turkish Postal Services. The robustness of the Ramsey rule is assessed under alternative estimates of demand and similarly, in the absence of reliable data, under alternative intervals of marginal cost. Ramsey prices for two letter categories and welfare gains of moving from the existing pricing structure to Ramsey are determined and examined. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the existing policy is not Ramsey optimal and that this is a fairly robust result.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:16:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1511081 bytes, checksum: 15cf12e97a61817295a3f17c497f5fec (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The current dissertation aimed at evaluating the influence of human values, judgment and meaning, and need for cognition in the choice and attributes of postal services. In accordance with these objectives, two studies were conducted. Study 1 aimed at knowing the psychometrics parameters of the Attributes of Postal Services Scale and the Judgment and Meaning Scale for services, and testing the theoretical model with a sample of students. Participants were 215 students of a public university in João Pessoa (PB), most of them females (61.40%), with mean age of 20 years old (sd = 3.79). A preliminary statistical analysis indicated that all items presented satisfactory discriminative power. Prior to performing the factor analysis, the suitability of using this technique was checked, and for both scales results were adequate: Attribute of Postal Services [KMO = 0.70, Bartlett‟s Sphericity Test, χ ² (210) = 1183.31 p <0.001], and Judgment and Meaning Scale [KMO = 0.75, Bartlett‟s Sphericity Test, χ ² (300) = 1210.93, p <0.001]. A PAF (Principal Axis Factoring) was conducted, without fixing the number of factors and rotation. According to what was expected, in both scales a two-factor solution emerged, and reliability indexes (Cronbach‟s Alpha) were 0.81 and 0.76, respectively. These results evince the factor validity and reliability for both instruments. The theoretical model was confirmed by the correlations found between the symbolic attributes of postal services with emotive judgment and meaning (r = 0.46, p <0.01); the normative (r = 0.24, p <0.01 ) and interactional subfunction of values (r = 0.23, p <0.01); and need for cognition (r = -0.15, p <0.05); as well as the correlation found between the utilitarian attributes of postal services with rational judgment and meaning (r = 0.28, p <0.01); and need for cognition (r = 0.14, p <0.05). This model fitted the empirical data [χ ² (7) = 17.77, p = 0.01, χ ² / df = 2.54, GFI = 0.98, AGFI = 0.91, CFI = 0.95 and RMSEA = 0.085 (0.03 - 0.14); PCLOS = 0.10]. The documents‟ importance and the services attributes were better predictors of the choice of postal services, and the mails‟ opening priority was influenced by the psychological variables measured. Study 2 aimed at testing the same theoretical model with a sample of postal service users. Participants were 238 clients of postal offices of João Pessoa (PB), 50.8% were female and the mean age was 32 years old (sd = 11.45). Findings were similar to Study 1 results, with the exception of the correlations hypothesized to need for cognition. The model also proved to be adjusted to the empirical data [χ ² (7) = 14.88, p = 0.04, χ ² / df = 2.13, GFI = 0.98, AGFI = 0.93, CFI = 0, 97 and RMSEA = 0.07 (0.02 - 0.11); PCLOS = 0.22]. The documents‟ importance and the services attributes were better predictors of choice of postal services and mails‟ opening priority. The psychological variables measured showed greater influence in this study. In conclusion, it is hoped that the aims proposed in this dissertation were reached. Therefore, it is likely it presents a contribution to this field in Social Psychology: the influence of psychological variables in the behavior of postal services‟ consumption. / A presente dissertação objetivou conhecer a influência dos valores humanos, do julgamento e a atribuição de significado e da necessidade de cognição nos atributos e escolha de serviços postais. Para tanto, levaram-se a cabo dois estudos. O Estudo 1 verificou os parâmetros psicométricos das Escalas de Atributos dos Serviços Postais e de Julgamento e Significado do Serviço e a testagem do modelo teórico com uma amostra de estudantes. Participaram 215 universitários de uma instituição pública de João Pessoa (PB), a maioria do sexo feminino (61,4%) com idade média de 20 anos (dp = 3,79). Inicialmente, comprovou-se que os itens das duas escalas apresentaram poder discriminativo satisfatório. Prévia a realização da comprovação da estrutura fatorial, testou-se a adequação de se empregar esta técnica, tanto para a Escala de Atributos de Serviços Postais [KMO = 0,80 e Teste de Esfericidade de Bartlett, χ² (210) = 1183,31; p < 0,001] como para a de Julgamento e Significado do Serviço [KMO = 0,75; Teste de Esfericidade de Bartlett, χ² (300) = 1210,93; p < 0,001], optando-se pelo método PAF (Principal Axis Factoring). Como esperado, ambas as escalas apresentaram dois fatores, com índices de consistência interna (Alfa de Cronbach) de 0,81 e 0,76, respectivamente, reunindo-se evidências de validade fatorial e consistência interna. O modelo teórico foi confirmado com a correlação entre os atributos simbólicos dos serviços postais e o julgamento e significado emotivo (r = 0,46, p < 0,01), as subfunções valorativas normativa (r = 0,24; p < 0,01) e interacional (r = 0,23, p < 0,01) e a necessidade de cognição (r = -0,15; p < 0,05), e com a correlação entre os atributos utilitários e o julgamento e significado racional (r = 0,28, p < 0,01) e a necessidade de cognição (r = 0,14; p < 0,05). Este modelo se mostrou ajustado aos dados empíricos [χ² (7) = 17,77, p = 0,01, χ²/gl = 2,54, GFI = 0,98, AGFI = 0,91, CFI = 0,95 e RMSEA = 0,085 (0,03 0,14); PCLOSE = 0,10]. Verificou-se que a importância do documento e os atributos dos serviços postais foram os melhores preditores da escolha de serviços de postagens e que a prioridade de abertura de correspondências sofre influência das variáveis psicológicas aferidas. O Estudo 2 teve o objetivo de testar o mesmo modelo teórico com uma amostra de usuários de serviços postais. Participaram 238 clientes de agências de Correios de João Pessoa (PB), sendo 50,8% do sexo feminino e a idade média de 32 anos (dp = 11,45). Foram encontrados resultados semelhantes aos do Estudo 1, com exceção das correlações hipotetizadas para a necessidade de cognição. O modelo mostrou-se ajustado aos dados empíricos [χ² (7) = 14,88, p = 0,04, χ²/gl = 2,13 , GFI = 0,98, AGFI = 0,93, CFI = 0,97 e RMSEA = 0,07 (0,02 0,11); PCLOSE = 0,22]. A importância do documento e os atributos dos serviços postais mostraram-se melhores preditores da escolha de serviços de postagem e da prioridade de abertura de correspondências, porém as variáveis psicológicas analisadas apresentaram maior influência neste estudo. Concluindo, confia-se que os objetivos desta dissertação tenham sido alcançados, apresentando-se nesta oportunidade uma contribuição para o campo da Psicologia Social: A influência de variáveis psicológicas nos comportamentos de consumo de serviços postais.

<p>U doktorskoj disertaciji rešavaju se sledeći problemi: problem opisivanja sistema masovnog opsluživanja kada teorija masovnog opsluživanja nailazi na ograničenja primene, problem predviđanja vremena čekanja, problem modelovanja odnosa na tržištu ekspres usluga kao izvora uticaja na redove čekanja, problem upravljanja brojem aktivnih kanala sistema masovnog opsluživanja i problem uticaja na subjektivno vreme čekanja. Primenom elemenata veštačke inteligencije i statističkih metoda razvijen je model za predviđanje parametra vremena čekanja u realnom vremenu pri jedinicama poštanske mreže za pružanje usluga korisnicima.</p> / <p>The dissertation provides answers to the following issues: the problem of describing the queueing system when the queueing theory encounters limitations in its use, predicting the waiting time, the problem of modeling relations in the market of express services as a source of influence on the queues, managing the number of active channels in the queueing systems and the impact on subjective waiting time. Through application of artificial intelligence and statistical methods, a model has been developed which in real time predicts the parameters of waiting time at the units of postal network that provide service to customers.</p>