Friday, November 27, 2009

A paperless Post Office

Government InformationWeek recently interviewed USPS Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice-President Ross Philo.

Philo's interview appears here, and he had some interesting things to say.

Most interesting was his comment on creating a more paperless internal structure. He said, "It's a change in behavior--providing information online to people more effectively, as well as changing processes that are fundamentally paper based."

He's not talking about mail, but our internal processes.

Do you see wasteful paper use in your operation? Give me your opinion here.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see a lot of wastage in paper. I am required to fill out numerous reports that duplicate the information in each report. I have to keep them for 90 days then destroy them. THis information could be input into one form on the computer with a verification and never have to be printed.

What a waste!!!

Anonymous said...

I have several logs that verify other logs that have to be filled out daily. There is so many reports that are the same and all it does is create waste. Every report that is done online has to be printed off and kept in a file even though a person can go online and pull the report if needed. If we could get away from the duplicate reports and the mentality that we have to have a hardcopy of everything we would be able to save time and money.

Anonymous said...

When I started at our small Iowa PO we probably used a ream or two of paper per year. By the time I retired at the end of Oct this year, I would order paper 20 reams at a time 6 times a year.

Anonymous said...

Logs, logs, and more logs. I file them then throw them away. I am awaiting the day when I have a log that states I have done the logs. Save this log for 90+ days then destroy the many logs and then initial a log saying I destroyed the logs. Sound ridiculous? Just wait I am sure it is coming.

Anonymous said...

YES, YES, YES, & YES and they said when we all got computers it would save us ALL time and PAPER, not so many reports on hardcopy. LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL (in case you don't know that stands for LAUGH OUT LOUD, ETC.)

Anonymous said...

Paper and ink usage is ridiculous. Send out 30 and 40 page instructions for us to copy. The ink and paper alone put my small office just a bout over budget before I need anything else.

Anonymous said...

I agree wholeheartedly with the above posts! More logs and logs that verify that we signed a log and printing verification that we werified a scan. It is just crazy! Saying we are reducing paper usage and actually making it happen are two ends of the spectrum!

Anonymous said...

I agree with all the previous comments; we are so wasteful with paper in the Post Office. It has to be a huge expense.

Anonymous said...

When (upper management) finally decide to reduce paper redundancy - also reduce the application log ins. Log once into the Blue Page and have access, approved by position and location.

Anonymous said...

Off the subject, but did anyone see the artice in the Morning Report RE; the $75 million payout to 1500 Pittsburgh Pa union people!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder we are going down the tubes!!!!!!! Have the unions completely lost their minds, or are they intentially trying to tank the USPS?

Anonymous said...

What about all the placards we are required to use on our outgoing mail? We used to use tray/tub labels, but now we have to stick an entire sheet of paper to each tub we send to the processing plant! And, if a parcel is too big to fit into a flats tub, it gets a placard taped directly to it!!

Anonymous said...

Managers managing managers! Logs used to prove we are doing our jobs. If you do the math, each of the 31,000 post offices must print the CPMS report and sign it. That’s 31,000 pieces of paper per day, or 9.672 million sheets of paper used each year for this one report…..that can be seen and stored on line! That comes to about $76,603.00 for just the paper….not counting the ink and man hours spent. Some how this is not seen as a waste by some managers??

MBAcarrier said...

this is pathetic. we centralize IT functions, but cannot consolidate IT programs. We attempt streamlining of processes yet fail to streamline the paperwork that is a SUPPORT function. We stringently regulate the time spent working, yet waste more in that regulation.

wake up everyone......if you do not effectively tap the resources of the service, you will be working for those resources when management changes to an outside source