USPS bid to even out Standard Mail loads through the week

[POSTMAN]

http://postandparcel.info/59455/news/co ... -the-week/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



The US Postal Service is planning to change the service standards for some of its Standard Mail collections to a four-day service.

The change, for items dropped by business mailers at Destination Sectional Center Facilities (DSCF), aims to allow USPS to spread its Standard Mail volumes more evenly through the week.

At the moment, the current three-day standard means mail collected on busy Thursdays and Fridays all has to be deliver on Mondays.

The changes will mean mailings including direct mail, catalogues, flyers and other advertising mail collected on Fridays and Saturdays will take an extra day to be delivered.

USPS has asked for an Advisory Opinion from regulators, although it does not have to wait for the Opinion to implement the service change, which could take effect from the end of March 2014.

Business mailers drop off about 62% of all their Standard Mail at DSCFs – about 32% of all Postal Service mail volumes. USPS delivers about 81bn Standard Mail items each year overall.

The Postal Service has tested its so-called Load Leveling Plan around its South Jersey processing plant in New Jersey, and in the Washington DC area. It said the testing showed the plan easing the burden on its network and reducing carrier overtime hours.

Linda Malone, manager of processing operations in the USPS network operations department, stated that various options for leveling out the mail through the week had been discussed with mailers before the current option was selected.

“Changing the service standard for DSCF Standard Mail entered on Fridays and Saturdays creates an opportunity for the Postal Service to implement operational changes that level the workload associated with processing and delivery of such mail and to significantly improve its delivery operations in general,” she said.

The leveling of mail through the week is part of USPS changes designed to improve the federal agency’s efficiency as it looks to tackle its current loss-making situation and respond to the 25% drop in mail volumes seen since 2006.

The Postal Service recorded a $5bn loss in its 2013 fiscal year, and is currently looking for measures to close a $20bn budget gap by 2017.

USPS has already consolidated more than 350 of its mail processing facilities in the past few years, and reduced its delivery routes by more than 19,000.

That process has already seen mail service standards for First Class Mail changed, so that items are no longer guaranteed overnight delivery except when delivered locally around sorting plants.

[Lounge Lizard]

If Moya does something like this "to spread Standard Mail volumes more evenly through the week" she will have us all doing more on a Tuesday. .