OREANDA-NEWS. Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation (TISS) and Toshiba Rus LLC (TRU), Toshiba Corporation's Russian subsidiary, have won a major order from Russian Post, Russia's national postal service, for a customs system to be installed at Kazan Logistics Postal Center. TISS and TRU will complete the 1-billion yen order (approx. US$10 million) in the coming months, and the system is scheduled to start operation in November.

TISS and Russian Post have also reinforced their strategic collaboration with the signing of an MoU on postal and logistics automation systems, at the Eastern Economic Forum 2017 in Vladivostock.

Russia's fast growing market for online shopping saw inbound international cargo volumes increase almost 10 times from 2012 to 2016, with particularly strong growth in small parcels. Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan in the Volga Federal District, one of the ten largest cities in Russia, has in recent years undertaken a major expansion of its airport, and this, combined with its central position, has made the city a key logistics hub for air, road and waterborne freight.

The new system, which will be installed at Russian Post's Logistic Postal Center at Kazan Airport, will fully automate the customs operation of incoming parcels: it will x-ray them, weigh and measure them, and check the customs declaration and addresses for sorting by destination. Modernization and automation of the system is expected to significantly improve efficiency, accuracy and throughput.

TISS has been a business partner of Russian Post since receiving─and fulfilling─an order for the Moscow International Exchange Center in 2014. That system's five lines─sorters for mail, express mail service, small packets, micro packet, and a customs system─are integrated into a configuration that optimizes operational flow and headcount, and that has significantly improved processing of mail and small parcels.