Background

The Postal Service’s Tucson P&DC is in the Arizona District of the Western Area. During fiscal year (FY) 2019, it manually processed 12.2 million letters, 2.6 million flats, and 6.5 million parcels. Mail is processed manually when its dimensions or address quality prevent it from being processed on mail processing equipment. It is much more cost effective to process mail on mail processing equipment rather than manually. In FY 2019, the national average productivity for flats processed on mail processing equipment was 1,980 mailpieces per hour while national average productivity for manually processed flats was 332 mailpieces per hour.

We selected the Tucson P&DC for review based on our analysis of manual flats productivity as measured by the Management Operating Data System (MODS). The Tucson P&DC’s FY 2019 manual flats productivity of 992 mailpieces per hour was significantly higher than the national average productivity of 332 mailpieces per hour. Our objective was to assess manual flats processing operations at the Tucson P&DC.

• Finding #1: Manual Flats Processing Workhours
  The Tucson P&DC’s manual flat processing workhours were understated, which caused the manual flat productivity to be overstated.

• Finding #2: Operating Plan
  We found that the P&DC’s operating plan did not reflect current mail processing operations.

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Source: USPS Office of Inspector General