Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Postal Service is working to enable end-to-end visibility into every parcel flowing through its network to mitigate delivery delays, Postmaster General David Steiner said during a Senate committee hearing last week.
- Limited visibility leads to cases in which a wedding invitation gets delivered after the wedding date, or a bill arrives after its due date, according to Steiner. Improving visibility will allow the agency to notify plant managers when parcels at their location are delayed so they can address the issue, he added.
- "I would rather have 100% of the mail delivered within a reasonable period of time than saying, 'Let's just have 95% delivered in a certain period of time, the other 5% we don't care,'" Steiner said at the hearing in front of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Dive Insight:
While light on details regarding the Postal Service's visibility ambitions, Steiner's remarks underscored another way the agency is looking to improve delivery reliability and better compete with FedEx and UPS.
"This is not rocket science technology," Steiner said of parcel-level visibility. "This is not technology that doesn't exist. This is technology that exists that other companies use."
The Postal Service is already making headway by investing in scanning and sensing technologies, as well as modern information systems, to create a "near real-time view of every shipment throughout its journey," spokesperson Jim McKean said in an emailed response to Supply Chain Dive. He said initiatives supporting the effort include:
- Expanding the use of Bluetooth Low Energy technology to improve the visibility of parcels inside containers
- Using Bluetooth beacon devices in test packages to identify bottlenecks for high-value shippers
- Using bidirectional cameras to track container movements throughout a facility
- Reinforcing scan compliance through employee training and other measures "to ensure critical tracking events are consistently captured throughout the network”
"Collectively, these investments are creating a more connected and intelligent postal network that improves customer visibility, enhances operational efficiency, strengthens service performance, and provides the data needed to drive continuous improvement," McKean said.
However, the Postal Service has underinvested in technologies that could improve visibility due to its ongoing financial challenges, Steiner said. He has blamed the cash crunch in part on universal service requirements, a steep decline in mail volume since 2006, regulatory pricing restrictions and pension payment obligations.
For customers, the Postal Service typically offers a solid visibility experience when they handle the entire shipping process from pickup to delivery, Samuel Moore, an industry consultant and Los Angeles Postal Customer Council board member, said in an interview with Supply Chain Dive. However, the agency can sometimes struggle with visibility in the early stages when third parties handle package pickups, or customers opt to bypass pickup and drop packages off at a local post office themselves.
"The customer's either taking it there or someone else is picking it up, and because of that, they don't own end-to-end, and that tracking experience is negative," Moore said.
