SPRINGDALE, Ohio — As the year comes to an end, the U.S. Postal Service is gearing up for its busiest season, expecting to deliver up to 950 million packages by New Year’s Day.
To avoid the delays that came with the overwhelmed 2020 postal system, USPS representatives said aggressive hiring tactics and upgraded facilities should get packages moving this season.
At the processing facility just outside of Cincinnati, plant manager Maureen Stewart said productivity is at an all-time high thanks to a new small parcel sorting system installed in the fall.
“This can get through 6,000 packages an hour,” she said.
One of 112 new sorting systems installed across the country, Springdale’s SPSS scans the barcode on the parcel, then runs it through a converter belt until its dropped into a bin to be shipped to its final destination.
On an average day, Stewart said the center sorts about 129,000 packages.
“Right now, we’re probably up to about 220,000,” she said.
The new equipment is only part of the picture, though. Stewart said staffing, space and morale all play a role in keeping the parcels moving.
“We’ve hired 63,000 — we’ve converted non-career employees. We’ve also hired 40,000 peak employees,” Stewart said, referring to USPS as a whole. “We have the staffing this year. We’ve got the new machines. We’ve opened up peak season annexes. We’re really ready this year.”
Nakara Stephens the manager of distribution operations said the facility started planning for the season last February, after an overwhelming 2020 holiday season.
“We’re expecting more volume than last year,” he said. “But we can run more packages than we ever ran and eliminate some of the pitfalls we had last year due to COVID.”
From October through November, USPS delivered 91.1% of its First-Class Mail on time. The office hopes to maintain and even improve that standard through the end of the year.
