May 27, 2015

The Postal Service will 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 to successfully right-size the postal processing network.

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

Deferred consolidation activities will resume in 2016.

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