How to Read
Our Annual Report
2000 Highlights
Letter from
the Postmaster General/CEO
2000 Year
in Review
Delivering
the Future
The Governors
of the Postal Service
Audit Committee
Financial
Section
How to Read
Our Financial Statements
Quick
Find index
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2000 Annual Report
- page 36 of 70
We call a magazine, catalog,
newspaper, advertising circular, and large envelopes a "flat," which
is short for flat-size mail. Flats are oversize, bigger than letters,
from 6 to 12 inches wide, 15 inches long, and 3/4-inch thick and
weigh from one ounce to one pound, about the size of a Sunday newspaper.
We deliver a lot of flats every day, over 51 billion in 2000. Moving
flats quickly and economically is vital to you because you want
that magazine delivered on time and to us because we want to provide
the fastest, most economical service possible.
Our new Automated Flat Sorter Machine, or
AFSM 100, is a state-of-the-art wonder of technology that
processes mail almost three times faster than the machine
that it replaces. Each of its three high-speed feeders can take
in almost 6,000 flats per hour, which means the AFSM 100 can
process over 17,000 flats per hour. When fully operational,
each AFSM 100 is able to process more than 300,000 flats per
day. This machine can also handle some polywrapped pieces,
unlike its predecessor.
Using the latest optical character and bar code reader technology,
the AFSM 100 reads the address on each piece of flat mail
and then sorts it into one of 100 bins. When it can't read
an address, it automatically sends an image of the piece to
a nearby room where a postal worker reads the address and
keys in the information that allows the piece to be sorted
properly.
We began deployment of the first 175 AFSM 100 machines in
April 2000 and had 70 of them in operation by the end of the
year. These initial machines are providing added capacity
to our plants nationwide. We also are purchasing an additional
362 AFSM 100s as replacements for our older Model 881 flat
sorters. All of these machines should be in operation by April
2002. With the AFSM 100, we can certainly process the mail
faster and more efficiently, but just as importantly, we are
able to handle it more accurately. This new technology allows
us to control costs while delivering high quality service.
Such machines as the AFSM 100 take time and money to design
and develop, but we have to continue our commitment to investing
in new technology if we are to continue improving productivity.
And it takes time for these investments to pay dividends in
the form of increased productivity, but they do return much
more than what we invest. To become more efficient in the
future, we must invest in technology today. Without our past
investments, we simply wouldn't be able to move as much mail
as efficiently as we do today. Some of the machines that will
make it possible for us to improve our efficiency in the future
are listed on page 40*.
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With the right tools, our employees can achieve
record productivity.
Helping Our Employees
Because the AFSM 100 can process so much mail so quickly,
we designed a special worker-friendly, light-weight, ergo-cart
that workers can use to bring flats to the machine's three
automatic feeders. When loaded with up to 850 pounds of mail,
the cart can be pushed with one hand by anyone with average
strength. Using ergonomics, we designed a cart that helps
those who operate the AFSM 100 to be as productive as possible
while protecting their health and safety.
* page
35 in the printed version
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