USPS looking for solution to eliminate paper, ink and workhours associated with labeling Mail Transport Equipment in a Mail Processing Environment
The United States Postal Service (USPS) utilizes a large array of material handling equipment (rolling stock including carts and dollies) during mail processing that we refer to as Mail Transport Equipment (MTE). This equipment is used for the staging and transportation of mail for downstream mail processing operations (intra/inter facility). The accurate and efficient labeling, identification, and tracking of this MTE is of the utmost importance.
Currently, the USPS uses printed (human readable) placards in order to label, track, and route MTE throughout the facility. The use of printed placards is a recurring cost (paper, ink, maintenance) as well as the labor associated with adhering and removing printed placards from MTE.
The USPS is seeking a solution that will eliminate the need for paper, ink, and labor hours associated with the labeling of MTE in a USPS mail processing environment. The desired solution we believe includes an electronic display device/placard to be affixed to the MTE. Updating of the electronic placards shall be performed wirelessly. All data to be wirelessly written to the digital displays would be retrieved automatically and electronically from a web service and or database provided by the USPS. Once an image has been written to the placard, it shall remain static until wirelessly overwritten. The battery for each individual electronic placard must have a long-life – no less than 4 years. Any proposed solution will provide no less information (MTE identification, routing, tracking, etc.) than that of the existing paper placard methodology.
The USPS is not currently seeking a production ready solution. The USPS is seeking a “ready to field” prototype system which would allow for the feasibility testing of a paperless placard system in a controlled processing environment. This feasibility test will require the installation of up to 600 electronic display devices on mail transport equipment (MTE) at a Washington D.C. area processing and distribution center (P&DC).
If this feasibility trial shows promise for future application, the USPS would move forward with a more formal research and development effort for the fielding of a production quality product. The USPS is seeking a prototype ready for testing within 1 week of contract award.
source: FeBizOpp: Paperless Cart Placard System – Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities.
A u cart is a u cart. It does not need a sign to say it’s a u cart.
There is not a need to Count this mte just another way to waste money. Its a waste because it just adds more counting to the job. Another SYSTEM to bankrupt the PO. Hard copy company drowning in a sea of electronic stupidity. Remember PIVMS.
If this idea is adopted, it will likely result in using MORE paper, ink, and labor than the current practice, as the usual pattern after such a change is for higher level Postal Managers to require checklists and reports to be generated at frequent intervals to “prove” that their idea is working.
the post office spends so much money thinking up these hairbrain ideas that they could save billions if they just got rid of the idiots that think up these stupid ideas!!!
If they REALLY want to save money… they won’t have carriers/clerks stacking and stretch-wrapping empty trays/tubs onto pallets for shipment to a local plant where they will simply be turned around and reused. Last January, it became mandatory to do this due to the relocation of the national MTE facility. The concept was to ship these pallets by rail/truck to the center, for redistribution nationwide… but, in reality most of this equipment never leaves it’s local operating cycle. The old method of simply stacking the empties into APC’s worked very well and didn’t incure the extra cost of stretch-wrap [our station goes through about $90/month on this alone] and the labor costs involved [roughly $15/day]. DO THE MATH, people! This change was as beneficial as those idiotic transparent Express mail pouches that were introduced a couple of years ago that caused expensive service failures due to their similarity to existing Priority sacks. At least in that case they were pulled from service after only hindering our system for a couple of months! But in that short time very SHABBY R&D cost the USPS thousands of dollars in operating costs.
If HQ REALLY wants to save money in handling MTE they would trash the old wornout trays that will NOT stack evenly with others: currently we have three distinct MM trays [the most common] and none of them are truly compatible with the others due to different manufacturing materials [plastic may be durable, but there is no substitute for the original cardboard style! PLUS: it’s far more “green”
in practicality] and slightly differing sizes… even an 1/8″ makes a difference when you’re handling hundreds of these monsters.
It is SO typical of HQ to see the forest… and NOT the trees. The wisest among us have long understood that to solve the major problems… they must be tackled from the bottom up and not vice-versa!
HQ!!! Are you LISTENING!?? Probably not.