USPS Office of Inspector General

It’s hard to argue with the rationale behind rightsizing the postal network. With mail volumes in decline, it made sense for the U.S. Postal Service to see if it could consolidate facilities and equipment.

That’s what USPS did from 2011 to 2015 as part of a two-phased network rationalization plan when it consolidated 223 facilities. As part of Phase II, the Postal Service also revised its First-Class Mail service standards, eliminating overnight delivery for single-piece FCM and shifting some FCM from the two-day service standard to three days.

It has been a dozen years since the U.S. Postal Service introduced the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) to sort and track individual letters, cards, and flats. In many ways, the IMb has lived up to its early promise of many tools in a single barcode.

The customer is king, or queen. It’s an age-old mantra that rings especially true in this age of the “empowered” customer.

The U.S. Postal Service has a lot of kings and queens. Last year, 857 million retail customers visited the more than 30,000 USPS-managed retail spaces, generating nearly $10 billion (14 percent) of the Postal Service’s $69.6 billion operating revenue.