USPS Office of Inspector General

Once upon a time the assembly line was the symbol of cutting-edge innovation and efficiency in manufacturing. One day soon 3D printing could give the assembly line a run for its money. 

No, we didn’t launch our new website just to mark the anniversary of our Pushing the Envelope blog. It’s just a happy coincidence. But we do want to mark both occasions as they share a very important common element: you. 

Self-driving vehicles might seem like a plot device in a science fiction movie -- think iRobot or Total Recall – but actually, they’re already here. Google and other companies have been testing driverless vehicles for several years, and some aspects of semi-autonomous vehicle technology, like automatic parallel parking, are available in some new cars.

As the ever-lengthening election season gears up, you can expect to receive more political mail. Political mail – also called campaign mail – provides a nice revenue lift for the U.S. Postal Service during election years. In fiscal year 2014, the Postal Service earned more than $317 million from political mail.

Management consulting guru Peter Drucker famously said of business management, “What gets measured gets done.” And the U.S. Postal Service seems to follow that maxim, using performance indicators and other types of measurements to improve performance in many aspects of its operations. But we recently found it could benefit from more such measurement in one area – its Premier Office Program.