December 12, 2006


USPS Expands Mail-Sorting Technology to Improve Service, Reduce Costs: New system will sort large envelopes, magazines, and catalogs in
delivery order.

Technology that successfully boosted postal efficiencies in the processing, distribution, and delivery of letter mail will soon be applied to the sorting of what the Postal Service refers to as "flats"— large envelopes, magazines, catalogs, and circulars.

Known as the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) program, the initiative approved today by the Postal Service Board of Governors allows the agency to move forward with plans to employ sophisticated equipment to sort flat-mail pieces for letter carriers, who now must manually sequence this mail before leaving the office for their routes.

"Using technology to sort flat mail into the order of delivery for letter carriers will increase efficiency in the office and allow carriers to begin delivering to their customers earlier in the day," said Walt O’Tormey, vice president, Engineering. "The Postal Service experienced significant benefits in the 1990s by automating the processing and sequencing of letter mail, and we hope to extend these improvements to the processing of flats."

The FSS equipment is designed to sequence flat mail at a rate of approximately 16,500 pieces per hour. Scheduled to operate 17 hours per day, each machine will be capable of sequencing 280,500 pieces per day to more than 125,000 delivery addresses.

Phase I of the program calls for an initial order of 100 FSS machines to be deployed to 33 postal facilities beginning in the summer of 2008.

A prototype FSS was installed earlier this year at the Indianapolis, IN, Mail Processing Annex, where it was tested sorting mail in delivery sequence for carriers in that area. A full-size pre-production machine will be installed at the Dulles, VA, mail processing facility, where it will operate six days a week for one year (August 2007 to July 2008).