The U.S. Postal Service announced yesterday that it is putting the Flats Sequencing System into five new locations but has still not revealed whether the machines work as intended.
As a result of declining volumes of catalogs, magazines, and other flat mail, the number of facilities getting the first 100 FSS machines is 47, up from 32 that were planned just a year ago.
San Diego will get two machines, while one each will go to Brooklyn, Cleveland, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. Palatine, IL will get an additional machine. Carol Stream, IL; Denver; Indianapolis; Middlesex-Essex, MA; Providence, RI; and Sacramento, CA will each lose a machine.
The revised schedule released yesterday shows the last of the 100 machines starting up in May 2011. Eleven machines are already sorting mail, and another 37 are in various phases of installation or start-up.
Eight months ago, USPS's Office of Inspector General said that "deploying FSS machines to additional sites is premature" until the system "demonstrates operational stability and achieves the minimum performance requirements under field test conditions". But postal officials decided that the results were good enough and providing enough cost savings to press on with more installations.
A third round of acceptance testing was scheduled for last fall, but USPS has not revealed the results. Various sources, however, report that the machines have still not met the standards specified in the contract with the manufacturer, Northrop Grumman.
For more information on the system that is intended to revolutionize the handling of flat mail, please see:
Another Postal clusterf*ck of epic proportion.
ReplyDeletereally an oig report that was ignored im shocked!!! and the fss machines dont work as advertised double shocked. wonder which congressman(woman) got his pockets lined by this contract?? why doesnt oig investigate this?? could it be just like the drug world dont follow the $$ because you dont wont to know where it will lead?? biggest joke of all. just close the usps already thats where we are headed!!
ReplyDeleteLet me see if I got this straight. They're going to deploy MORE machines to sort flats that aren't there? Why do we lose money? STUPIDITY, that's why.
ReplyDeleteinteresting that now San Diego is on the list. where is the machine going to go? oh management is paying millions to add on to the MLS building all the while closing the midway facility.
ReplyDeletetalk about a waste of money!
unbelievable.
Same old old story with USPS managers. Penny wise and a dollar foolish. We all know that most of the managers are craft misfits and the rest of them don't know what they are doing.
ReplyDeletewhat happens if there is a miss cased flat. Do we carry it as a third bundle the next day? How about on days we have Penny saver and Marriage Mail and third bundle days we have mail that does not have an address on it such as bulk mail? How do we carry the first class flats?
ReplyDeletePalatine IL. is suppose to get 4 of them. Palatine is a 2 story building that just added a 14 million dollar expansion. Makes sense to me. Mail volume is down so let build a 14 million $$$ expansion. Now they squeezed every working unit to the first floor. Now you have mail all over the place on the 1st floor, and it feels like a can of sardines. Where is second floor have nothing there exept a few A.I. machines. Makes me wonder where they are going to get the people to work these machines as they cant get the mail out now with the workers we have. Every day there calling OT to get the DPS out. Oh ya, did I forget to mention that they are exesing hundred of worker out of the building.
ReplyDeleteI could go on and on but I am sure that it is happening all over the U.S. Big wigs that don't know what they are doing and don't really care what happens to the workers that move the mail....Wonder when the managers will take a pay cut to help save the P.O. ...lol.. NEVER.
Remember when this boat starts to sink, which it already has. They will be the first to abandon ship.
Would love to here more comment from workers at Palatine P & DC
We already have walk-sequenced flats. This isn't rocket science.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/user/dryMAILman#p/u/5/OSNVKC8DtvU
Of course the only solution to all this is to get rid of Saturday delivery. There is no way that money could be saved any other way.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke.
Not a surprise, management always screwing up, and then blaming the carriers because they can.
ReplyDeleteThat "Deployment Schedule" is a lie.
ReplyDeleteIn Trenton, NJ P&DC they just started to install the 3rd machine and neither of the other 2 installed have been through any "integration"...
It's all lies and and a collosal waste of money.
This deal with Northrup-Grumman needs to be investigated. These machines are not needed, they don't work up to specifications and they are very, very expensive.
Who got the kickback on this deal?