Tag: North America

Automated postal centres put on hold

Posted by | Jul 11, 2007 | |

The Postal Service is delaying the second stage of installing automated postal centres in lobbies.

About 2,500 automated postal centres have been located in post offices across the country. The centres allow customers to weigh letters and parcels, select the type of service needed and print out postage, using credit cards to pay.

McKiernan said of the 2,500 installed, 514 centres were not meeting expectations for various reasons.

McKiernan said that 145 of the underperforming centres are being relocated to other offices. In the other cases, officials are trying to determine if customers just don‘t want to use the machines or need assistance getting started with them.

An inspector general‘s report had warned that installing the planned 3,000 phase two centres could end up causing a loss of USD 115 million over seven years, rather than the anticipated USD 243 million in income.

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USA: Magazines braced for higher postage

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

On Saturday, the U.S. Postal Service is set to raise rates an average 12 percent for mailing magazines across the country — a move many feel favors the larger magazines at the expense of smaller ones.

The postal service contends the new standards will boost efficiency and offer users more choices by encouraging publishers to co-mail and co-palletize, which is combining multiple magazines into a single mailing.

The new rate system also includes discounts for mailers who print labels that a computer can read, as well as incentives for publishers who agree to ship their titles along with other magazines and for dropping their magazines closer to their final destinations, John Waller, director of the Postal Regulatory Commission office of Rates, Analysis and Planning, said yesterday.

Magazine publishers both locally and nationally are bracing for the new postal rate restructuring.

While the average increase is about 12 percent, the postal service said, publishers claim that postal rates for smaller publications could increase by as much as 30 percent while the increases for larger-circulation magazines could be less than 10 percent because they take advantage of the discount incentives.

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DHL spends USD 7.8 M in Minnesota

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

DHL said it has invested USD7.8 million to open a new regional sort center facility to serve its air and ground network in the Midwest.

The Plantation-based express delivery and logistics firm said the new facility, in Bloomington, Minn., relocates DHL from a 35,000-square-foot space in Blaine, Minn., to one more than double that size.

The new 79,049-square-foot regional sort center is also closer to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The company predicted its new technologies to more than double the packages it can process each hour.

DHL also recently completed a USD1.2 billion buildout of its U.S. domestic network and infrastructure, including an expanded primary air and ground hub in Wilmington, Ohio, and seven new regional sort centers throughout the country.

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USPS repositionable notes extended for additional year

Posted by | Jul 9, 2007 | |

The US Postal Service Governors accepted the recommendation of the Postal Regulatory Commission to extend the test on repostionable notes, or “sticky notes,” for one year.

The USPS’s repositionable notes allow mailers of First-Class Mail, Periodicals and Standard Mail to affix a Post-It-type note to the outside of cards, large letters, catalogs, magazines and newspapers for a fee, in addition to postage for the host piece.
RPNs are removable, 3-inch by 3-inch paper advertising messages used by business owners, advertising agencies and marketing professionals. They have been described as “billboards for a business’ mail,” because of their unique look and the fact that they can be removed from the mail piece and placed on computers, refrigerators or checkbooks as reminders.

Fees, which are based on a “value pricing” concept, are one-half cent for First Class and 1.5 cents for Standard Mail and Periodicals, plus the cost of postage.

RPNs were introduced on a provisional basis for a one-year period on April 3, 2005, and renewed for an additional year.

On June 14, the Postal Regulatory Commission approved the USPS’s request for another one-year extension to test the market desirability of RPNs

The USPS filed for the one-year extension request on April 2, the day before the April 3 expiration date. The extension sought to further test market demand and interest at the current price for the service. The USPS Governors approval means, rates can remain at their current levels through April 3, 2008.

Since the service first was introduced in April 2005, more than 1,500 customers have used RPNs on almost 247 million pieces of mail.

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Union wary of Postal Service’s plans for KCK center

Posted by | Jul 9, 2007 | |

A union leader has criticized the U.S. Postal Service’s proposal to close a facility in Kansas City, Kan., that employs 300 people. John Savala, president of National Postal Mail Handlers Union Local 297, said a recent public hearing on the matter left him and his organization frustrated.

The postal facility in question is a processing and distribution center at 5215 Richland Ave. The Postal Service has proposed consolidating its operations into a bigger facility in Kansas City, Mo.

The Postal Service has indicated that no layoffs would occur as a result of any consolidation. About 240 employees would be transferred to the Missouri center, and the remaining workers would leave through attrition.

Richard Watkins, a Postal Service spokesman for the Mid-America District, said changing economic conditions were forcing the Postal Service to adapt and make its own changes. The proposal to close the Kansas City, Kan., center is part of a national study by the Postal Service evaluating its operations.

The volume of the Postal Service’s most profitable product, first-class mail, has dropped 22 percent since the late 1990s, Watkins said, while costs continue to rise. As first-class mail volume declines, it makes sense for the Postal Service to examine consolidating operations from a leased facility to one it owns that has nearly 500,000 square feet of available capacity, according to Watkins.

Watkins said a study had shown that nearly USD 5.7 million could be saved annually by combining the operations.

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