How China Post Insurance Reached Top‑Tier DevOps Maturity: A Detailed Case Study

Domestic and international large enterprises have shown that standardization and tooling are key to success, and the DevOps standards and pipeline platforms can significantly improve quality, efficiency, safety, and agility.

China Information & Communication Research Institute (CAICT) has issued the "R&D Operations Integration (DevOps) Capability Maturity Model" series, which guides enterprises in applying DevOps. Companies from banking, securities, insurance, telecom, and internet sectors have participated in CAICT assessments, improving their IT capabilities.

On December 15, 2023, the GOLF+ IT New Governance Leadership Forum in Beijing announced the latest DevOps and AIOps assessment results. China Post Insurance's Sales Management System passed the CAICT Continuous Delivery Level 3 assessment, indicating a leading domestic capability.

Interview with Xiao Jianmin, Deputy General Manager of IT

China Post Insurance, a subsidiary of China Post Group, provides life, health, and accident insurance across 22 provinces. The company adopted DevOps to enhance service efficiency, reliability, and security.

The Sales Management System automates performance tracking, client information, and sales forecasting, generating plans and goals automatically. It also employs secure storage and tamper‑proof technologies to improve data safety and risk assessment.

Xiao expressed pride in achieving Level 3 certification, noting that it marks a new height in software development and operations, strengthens digital transformation, and provides a solid foundation for higher‑quality customer service.

Motivation for Joining the DevOps Assessment

The company pursued the assessment to boost R&D team capabilities, enhance business competitiveness, gain industry recognition, and establish a rigorous, secure, and stable development process.

Benefits and Impact of the Assessment

Through DevOps assessment, the company optimized development and delivery workflows, increased automation, reduced defect rates, shortened delivery cycles to about seven days, and improved build times to under ten minutes. Team members enhanced their skills, collaboration, and innovation spirit.

Key Metrics Demonstrating Improvement

Delivery speed reduced from weeks/months to 7 days.

Build duration converged to under 10 minutes.

Defect rate and fix time significantly decreased.

Development efficiency increased, measured by tasks completed per unit time.

System Features Highlighted by Architect Guo Junchang

Supports digital transformation with automation, intelligence, and visualization.

Automates budgeting and settlement, completing channel budget management within 1–2 days.

Closed‑loop payment process integrating fees calculation, reconciliation, and settlement.

Leverages big‑data analytics for real‑time decision support.

Implements risk control via data analysis and alert mechanisms.

Design focused on business scenarios, ensuring high performance, security, scalability, and reliability.

Challenges Faced During Assessment

The team encountered unfamiliar standards, high technical difficulty (microservices, automation), tight timelines, and cross‑department collaboration hurdles. Solutions included training, workshops, meticulous planning, process optimization, and establishing cross‑functional teams.

Future Plans and DevOps Outlook

Guo plans to further strengthen learning and innovation, adopt more automation and monitoring tools, explore cloud‑native and AI technologies, and continue improving software delivery.

He believes DevOps will continue to grow, emphasizing diversification, intelligence, cloud‑native approaches, and integration with containers, AI, and IoT, providing ongoing competitive advantages for enterprises.