Are There Other Viable Alternatives for 6-Day Delivery Operations?

In these challenging times, reducing the cost of delivery operations — one of the Postal Service’s largest expenses — could save millions. One option the Postal Service is considering is to discontinue Saturday city and rural delivery and collection services.

Postal Service delivery vehicle with words We deliver for you five days per peek

Saturday is said to be one of the lowest mail volume days. It’s also a day when many businesses are closed. The September/October 2009 digital issue of Mailing Systems Technology included a survey of managers working in the mailing industry. Of those surveyed, 98 percent said changing to 5-day delivery would not require a change in staffing. The survey results also indicated that most managers surveyed (81 percent) preferred Saturday as the day of the week that the Postal Service would stop delivering mail. An additional 62 percent of the managers surveyed felt that once implemented, there should be no exceptions to 5-day deliveries such as for holiday weeks or high-volume mailing periods.

Should the Postal Service eliminate Saturday city, rural, and contract delivery and collections mail services for all delivery units nationwide?

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Should the Postal Service eliminate Saturday city, rural, and contract delivery, collections, retail, and remittance mail services, but only for units with historically and projected low mail volumes?

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Should the Postal Service eliminate Saturday city, rural, and contract delivery, collections, retail, and remittance mail services for all delivery units nationwide?

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Modes of Delivery

picture of different delivery locations used by postal service

Providing mail delivery is central to the Postal Service’s mission.  Delivery is the Postal Service’s largest operational function and accounted for approximately one-third of its nearly $78 billion in total expenses during 2008.  Postal Service management is working hard to reduce delivery costs while continuing to deliver to 149 million[1] addresses in the most efficient manner possible.  Despite declining mail volumes, the Postal Service is challenged to provide cost efficient and effective service to a delivery network growing by more than 1 million addresses each year.

The mode of delivery plays an important role in determining the cost and efficiency of delivery.  The Postal Service provides three modes of delivery for existing delivery points — to the door, to a mailbox on the curb, and to a centralized point that serves several addresses.  Door-to-door delivery is the most costly mode and is no longer available for new delivery points.  When new developments are established, curbside and centralized deliveries are the only options.  Since centralized delivery is the cheapest mode, the Postal Service favors installing centralized delivery.  However, the decision on mode of delivery is sometimes left to the developer.
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Year 2

picture of Ben Franklin with a party hat with text celebrating one year of blogging

Pushing the Envelope officially launched on October 14 last year. Since that time, the blog has posted more than 49 topics including this one and more than 1,700 comments. Some topics have been more popular than others, and those covering issues of interest to Postal Service employees have generally received the most attention. For example, the following topics were the top five in terms of page views.

  1. 1. The OIG Wants to Know How You Feel about Sick Leave
  2. 2. Silly Rules
  3. 3. Nationwide Wage Uniformity
  4. 4. Brainstorm Ideas to Help the Postal Service
  5. 5. Brainstorm Ideas Part 2

But many of the less popular topics have also generated valuable debate about the Postal Service, its operations, and the postal industry in general. The OIG has even used reader comments and the results of blog polls in reports (for example, see Retail Technology Strategy — Automated Postal Centers and Financial Reporting Information Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006.

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Competition

Competition (picture of football helmet representing USPS colliding with the unknown competition)

When the topic of competition for the Postal Service comes up in casual conversation, the discussion usually involves FedEx or UPS. However, packages are a relatively small part of the Postal Service’s business. Certainly, these firms are direct competitors, but are there other competitors for Postal Service business?
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