Malaysian Address Semantic: The Process of Standardization

Abstract

Mail delivery has always been problematic to the Malaysian postal services due to incomplete or incorrect postal addresses. To this effect, the Malaysian Standard Body known as SIRIM has developed the Malaysian Standard Address with the purpose of standardizing Malaysian postal addresses and hence reducing the problem of undelivered mail. This article presents the findings of a study aimed at investigating the various postal-related problems in the Malaysian context. 275 domestic mails, randomly picked from Pos Malaysia Mail Processing Centre were examined and compared against the Malaysian Standard Address. The findings suggest that 58% of the addresses were non-conforming to the SIRIM address standard. Based on this finding, an automated system based on the semantic approach is proposed to address the issue of incomplete and inaccurate address in the context of Malaysia.