The Postal Service’s network distribution centers are playing a key role in moving packages this holiday season.
The 21 centers, located across the nation, help process a variety of mailpieces — including bulk shipments that arrive from major retailers fulfilling customers’ holiday orders.
“What fuels the engines of these systems is scanning,” said Joseph Kielbasa, an operations support specialist at the Springfield, MA, Network Distribution Center.
“Information is very valuable to the operation and to the customer. We need to know what’s on the trailers, what’s coming to us and what work needs to be done. Ultimately, the customer wants to know where the package is.”
To ensure efficient operations this holiday season — when USPS expects to process and deliver an estimated 850 million packages — the organization has made several improvements at the centers and other processing and distribution facilities.
Examples include eInduction, which streamlines the process that business customers use when they drop off mailings at USPS facilities, and “nesting,” which allows employees to pinpoint the containers where packages have been sorted.
Many centers also have parcel sorting machines, which are popular with employees like Len Giannetti, a maintenance mechanic at the Springfield NDC.
“It’s an awesome machine,” he said.