The Postal Service has decided to defer most of the plant consolidations that were scheduled to take place this summer as the final stage of its Network Rationalization Initiative.

The Network Rationalization Initiative is the multi-phase, multi-year effort announced in 2011 to balance mail processing infrastructure costs against current and anticipated mail volumes and to successfully right-size the postal processing network.

The decision to defer the next phase of the initiative was based on operational considerations, and was made to ensure that the Postal Service will continue to provide prompt, reliable and predictable service consistent with its published service standards.

The Postal Service will continue to implement network efficiencies and pursue service performance improvements as it has always done.