Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

A new Goss Magnapak inserter has been purchased by the Houston Chronicle to enhance its existing Goss NP632 and NP2299 inserters as part of a comprehensive project to improve mailroom capacity and efficiency.

Though the United States Postal Service (USPS) must live off of the revenue it generates rather than on government appropriations, it differs fundamentally from private enterprises in numerous ways. Those distinctions are more than just an interesting point of discussion. They are a key to understanding the Postal Service and how it might be reformed.

So, with thanks to many Dead Tree Edition readers, here are xxx more ways the USPS is not like a real business

This week, Structural Graphics presents a Web key brochure that it designed for The Hartford, to promote its new online workers' compensation quoting system.

For the first time I can remember, the United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a formal response to a Dead Tree Edition article, "USPS Comes Up With Yet Another Way to Discourage Early Retirement." The response was submitted as a comment on that article, but I think it deserves to be called out as a separate article.

I won't comment on the response, except to say that I'm glad USPS is apparently taking seriously the need for accurate FERS annuity estimates.

This week, Structural Graphics presents a sample of holiday cards it has produced for its clients. The company offers a variety of different holiday cards to choose from.

This week, Structural Graphics presents a Web key mailer that was created for a pharmaceutical client to introduce physicians to the features and benefits of Bydureon, a Type 2 Diabetes medication.

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe now has another problem: a new cadre of employee union leaders who are more stridently opposed to his efforts than their predecessors. The American Postal Workers Union, which represents 220,000 USPS employees, said insurgent candidate Mark Dimondstein had defeated incumbent President Cliff Guffey in a race that the union itself described as “hotly contested.”

Dimondstein received 26,965 votes, Guffey 21,007. Six other members of Dimondstein’s Members First Team were elected along with their leader. Dimondstein and his running mates have called for Donahoe’s ouster, accusing him of trying to “destroy” the USPS. They have promised

Do we need six-day delivery? Do we need five? I’m not sure, but I AM sure that we do need a USPS system—including rates—that are economically sustainable and predictable. In that scenario, we lose the uncertainty; we and our mailing customers can finally make reasonable and credible projections of business volume and cash flows.

I, and other postal commentators, have spilled a lot of ink (and pixels) explaining how billions of dollars have been needlessly taken from the United States Postal Service (USPS) to overfund its pension and retiree health benefits.

Rafe Morrissey, the Greeting Card Association's vice president of Postal Affairs, will present the association's plan for reviving the Postal Service, which advocates nationwide implementation of cluster boxes and adopting a host of other changes while preserving Saturday delivery and avoiding above-inflation rate increases.

Despite all the talk about the United States Postal Service (USPS) being a business, regular people understand it has the soul of a government agency and in fact is not allowed to act in a businesslike manner. Real businesses underfund their pensions. The Postal Service overfunded its pension plan (to the benefit of the federal government, not postal employees).

When a too-big-to-fail business gets into financial trouble, the federal government often props it up with interest-free loans in the name of economic stimulus. When the Postal Service ran into financial trouble, Congress insisted that it continue lending interest-free money to the