An investment recovery plan outlines how to identify, reuse, sell, or dispose of surplus and/or idle supplies. Investment recovery can generate significant revenue and create cost savings, allowing the Postal Service to reduce waste and increase revenue.
The investment recovery plan is first developed in Section 2-12, Develop Preliminary Investment Recovery Plan, and is finalized in Section 3-7, Finalize Investment Recovery Plan.
Implementation of the plan will guide and outline the activities associated with, and performed during, the Investment Recovery task of USPS Supplying Practices Process Step 6: End of Life. Implementing the investment recovery plan is the act of establishing as practice the previously planned activities associated with measuring and managing supply. The item manager is responsible for measuring and managing supply, the process essential to maintaining the appropriate levels of inventory to fulfill customer demand (or lack thereof). The client is also responsible for implementing the inventory control plan, in conjunction with the item manager.
By this stage of the process, a final removal decision has been made by the client regarding discontinued products, outdated products, inoperable equipment, and excess inventory, in accordance with the finalized investment recovery plan and the quadrant approach. The entire purchase/SCM team is involved in investment recovery; the item manager and client must consult the CO, market analyst, and pricing analyst for their insight, input, and advice regarding storage space, hidden costs, external demand, and the current value of surplus.
The essential components that ensure best value and facilitate investment recovery pertain to actualizing the final removal decision. Investment recovery is addressed by the following methods:
- Recycle — the “scrapping” of an asset that can no longer perform its intended function, cannot or should not be repaired, and cannot be sold as surplus.
- Reallocate — the actual relocation and redeployment of a material.
- Resell — the financial transaction of selling a material on the open market.
- Remarket — the selling of a surplus material back to the supplier.
- Return — the nonfinancial transaction of providing surplus material (e.g., delivery and industrial equipment) to the supplier for a credit.
- Remanufacture — the use of components of a material, alone or combined with others, to create a new material or product (e.g., mail transportation equipment and spare parts).
- Remove — the process of disposing of surplus material (e.g., old office furniture).
- Donate — the donation of assets to another organization.
