The United States Postal Service announced on April 27th that it will resume its Network Consolidation efforts that were suspended back in 2015 after outcries from mailers and consumers that service would suffer from more cutbacks.
The movement of mail processing operations at 18 postal facilities was previously paused in 2015. Those select moves will follow USPS’ existing contractual process and are expected to be completed by November 2021. Due to a decline in mail volume, the USPS said they will relocate or remove unnecessary letter and flat sorting equipment as appropriate to make space for much needed package processing equipment. Moving, removing, and repurposing mail processing equipment and operations or “operational mail moves” is an ongoing Postal Service strategy dating back decades that allows for more efficient, timely delivery of mail and packages.
The USPS also announced accelerated investment and procurement of 138 package processing sorters that will be operational ahead of the 2021 Peak Holiday Shipping Season, with plans to purchase additional processing machines over the next 18 months as package volume continues to grow. As USPS expands its role in the e-commerce marketplace, it said it would deploy and maintain a diverse suite of package sorters and material handling equipment to optimize processing throughputs. Just in March alone, USPS’ customer demand for package deliveries grew 28 percent over last year. There is no reason to believe that this trend will not continue as more and more on-line shopping with residential delivery requirements is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.
USPS also announced that it will lease an additional 45 annex facilities located near processing centers in key locations to support surges and overflow of packages.
The Postal Service has a national network of mail processing facilities that processes and sorts nearly 430 million pieces of mail and packages to 161.4 million addresses at least six days a week. In 2020, the Postal Service delivered more than 129.2 billion pieces of mail and packages to customers located in every state and territory, county, city, town and rural area in the nation. With their delivery network, they are uniquely well positioned to be a major player in the delivery of packages to US and global consumers.
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