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Status quo isn’t best USPS strategy, either

With regard to its plan to move some of Northwest Arkansas’ mail processing to Oklahoma City, the U.S. Postal Service really has one question to answer: Can it deliver?

That’s because the federal agency’s nationwide modernization plan, like most business overhauls, promises a lot. Detailed in a recent letter responding to questions by 3rd Congressional District Rep. Steve Womack, the plan hits all the right notes in justifying the shift: greater efficiencies, overcoming obsolescence in a system too long ignored, simplification, standardization, revitalization, elimination of outmoded practices.

The letter’s author, Mary Ann Simpson of the U.S. Postal Service, describes a history of neglect resulting in outdated and poorly planned facilities and operational strategies. If the system is not modernized, she wrote to Womack, “the result would be steadily degrading service and a Postal Service that is incapable of addressing” today’s mail and package delivery demands.

Changes proposed for Northwest Arkansas in a Mail Processing Facility Review launched last year are part of the Postal Service’s 10-year, $40 billion “Delivering for America” strategy to make the standalone federal agency financially stable and capable of meeting customer demand for the future.

In the grand scheme, the changes in Northwest Arkansas can easily be viewed as minor. An estimated cost savings of $2.5 million to $3.2 million isn’t chump change, but it’s small compared to billions involved in the overall strategy. At first, postal officials said a dozen staffers and one management position would be moved out of Northwest Arkansas. In the letter to Womack, Simpson said cited a smaller number: The change would impact seven career and one management positions, not with layoffs, but relocation.

With our region’s continuing growth, the gut feeling suggests it’s nonsensical to shrink postal service operations here. But how many times have we heard people’s concerns about bloated federal agencies and a need for them to operate in a more business-like manner? Is the fiscal conservatism of Northwest Arkansas limited to when such changes are happening to someone else?

Opposing any and all consolidations, Simpson advised Womack, “would consign our customers there [NWA] to deteriorating service provided by an obsolete network.”

The Postal Service’s pledge? “For the average Arkansas postal customer, these processing changes will go unnoticed, but what customers will notice is increasing reliability and more dependable service,” Simpson wrote. “The implementation of [Delivering for America] will enable the Postal Service to meet its service standards for all customers, including those in rural areas, more frequently than it has in the past. Businesses in the region will enjoy better and more efficient customer reach locally, regionally, and nationally.”

How? Local mail, according to Simpson’s letter, makes up a small portion of the region’s volume. The shift of operations will permit local processing to focus on distribution of mail in the region, while mail originating in Northwest Arkansas and going elsewhere can be more efficiently handled in a larger, more automated and well-equipped regional processing facility, according to Simpson. Distance, she said, isn’t the paramount factor in designing a logistics network. Efficiency matters more.

Northwest Arkansas, with its trucking and retail chops, knows about efficiencies through improved technology. Certainly, any jobs lost in the region are lamentable, but do you keep an outdated national system to assuage parochial concerns?

We’re not saying the Postal Service will unquestionably live up to its promises. It’s just that there’s no way to know. And streamlining its system of mail processing seems to be exactly the kind of action people often demand more of from government agencies.

If local customers of the U.S. Postal Service won’t see a reduction of services, a retooled strategy for processing that’s more efficient ought not be maligned over the fact that it involves change.

Womack said a recent visit with the U.S. postmaster left him hopeful about the future of postal operations in Northwest Arkansas, but he remained “wary.” That’s probably a reasonable approach to these promises from the Postal Service.

Can it deliver? It’s like asking whether Congress can find solutions to the nation’s challenges.

We’ll know when we know. But it’s hard to say the local reaction to the proposed changes ought to be a resounding “no.”