U.S. Postal Service Relies on Siemens for Mail Sorting Equipment

By Niladri Sekhar Nath

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

 

United States Postal Service (USPS) has hired Siemens (News - Alert) for additional mail sorting equipment. USPS has plans to install an additional 110 Delivery Bar Code Sorter (DBCS 6) machines to expand its existing fleet of letter sorting equipment.

 

Under the agreement, Siemens will provide installation and associated integrated logistics support services for the new machines as well as carts used to transport trays of sorted mail.

 

"The DBCS continues to be essential to Postal Service operations," said Lukas Loeffler, vice president, Postal Automation of Siemens in the U.S. "We work closely with the USPS (News - Alert) to adapt the machine to changes in the mail base and to greater productivity requirements."

 

Siemens Postal Automation, a division of the Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S) Group, offers solutions for mail sorting, reading and coding as well as parcel and freight handling solutions.

 

USPS has been using the DBCS as mail-processing platform for letters. The Postal Service has over 6,000 machines operating nationwide. Almost every letter will go through these machines several times while traveling through the postal network.  The additional equipment will be installed for the 2 million delivery points, comprising U.S. households and businesses that the Postal Service will be adding to its service.

 

This is the second order for the DBCS 6 from USPS. In November 2006, USUS awarded Siemens a $109.4 million contract for 211 of those machines.