Compur. & Ops Res.. Vol 4. pp. 233-234. Pergamon Press. 1977. Printed in Great Britain

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL POSTAL ISSUE

The postal services throughout the world face a great challenge. The demand for the postal services, in terms of speed and consistency, is increasing rapidly. Yet, the postal costs far exceed the postal revenues. In the free world, to my knowledge, there is no postal service (that is operating only as a postal institution) showing continuing profits or break-even points. Facing such a challenge, what can be done? One possible alternative would be to examine, in a serious manner, the ways in which different disciplines can be utilized to make postal operations more efficient. Now, in order to do so, we require two distinct approaches: (1) contributions that technological advances can make to the postal services, and (2) the developments in manage- ment tools that can increase production utilization of existing and developing technology.

The past few years have shown a great deal of effort in developing modern technologies for mail processing and mail transfer. The postal functions can appropriately be considered as a communications/transportation function[ 1,2] and the technologies available for com- munications can be utilized to improve postal effectiveness. Thus, for example, the rapid advances in electronic transmission have led the Postal Service to examine the concept of electronic message transfer systems[4]. Other technological advances are in progress and promise a great future. Nevertheless, the technological innovations by themselves will not solve the postal problems. Managerial talent and tools are essential for the successful implementation of the technological innovations as well.

The purpose of this special issue of C&OR is to highlight the applicability of the operations research and computerized techniques in managerial decision-making operations in postal services. The principal theme presented here is that analytical and quantitative techniques can be effectively utilized to solve several postal problems and provide an approach to merge the technological and managerial advances in postal services. Also, the papers in this issue reveal that several postal problems could use sophisticated analytical techniques, provided we concentrate on understanding the nature of postal operations.

The paper by Gupta and Krajewski attempts to review the applications of operations research to postal problems in various countries. The survey of applications is broad and is only representative of problem areas and solution approaches that have been proposed. It is not exhaustive and risks the exclusion of some most significant studies, especially in the corporate strategy areas. It is our hope, however, that this issue will inspire others to augment this survey by future publications. Nevertheless, this review paper does provide an insight into the difficulties of approaching postal problems and collecting necessary information to make appropriate managerial decisions.

An essential input to the application of operations research and computerized techniques in decision-making is the availability of reliable mail-volume forecasts. Yet, not much is available in this area. The paper by Chlosta and Froberg is, therefore, appropriate and deals with the mail-volume forecasting for a postal facility. The authors use time series analysis coupled with the general linear statistical model to provide an interactive mechanism for forecasting mail-volume and validating with actual outcome. The presentation of a case-study application of the proposed model lends credence to the suggested approach and gives some key issues in

implementing the model. The paper by Showalter et al. takes over the problem of production scheduling from where

Chlosta and Froberg’s article left off and covers another important segment, viz. manpower scheduling. Since postal operations are labor intensive at the present, appropriate manpower allocation models are both desirable and useful. Showalter et al. develop a heuristic procedure which assists the postal facility manager to develop efficient work force tour assignments. Within the heuristic solution procedure, the simulation of postal operations can be effectively used to improve the quality of solution.

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The mail in the postal facilities cannot be delayed if speedy communications are to be maintained. This often requires considerations of overtime operation and the question of the optimum use of overtime becomes appropriate. McManus, in his article, “Optimum use of overtime in post offices”, studies this problem and suggests suitable means to optimally allocate overtime. An interesting corollary of this analysis is that the financial interests of the employer need not be in conflict with those of the employees.

The processing of mail in a postal facility requires several operations, central to which is the mail-sorting. A carefully designed sorting scheme for mail can save enormous effort and resources. The article by Hijeg describes a simulation model (augmented with a heuristic principle) to design the structure of a parcel flow system and presents an application of the model. The simulation model used for planning the sorting structure explicitly considers the transportation restrictions so that the model can be useful in practice.

Jasinski and Steggles in their paper, “Modeling letter delivery in town areas”, consider the problem of estimating the workload requirements for the delivery side of postal operations. The model developed is simple and has the ability to predict the workload changes resulting from changes in environmental factors. Considering the labor intensive operation of delivery in postal sevices, it is possible that such models can save large sums of money.

The last paper, “A manual procedure for designing mailmen-routes” by Petersen, takes the delivery problem to its natural conclusion: actual route preparation for mail carriers. Petersen describes a manual procedure, in contrast to computerized schemes, that can be implemented in a local postal facility even by the mail carriers. Essentially, Petersen’s paper describes a heuristic procedure which is an alternative to the solution of the Chinese postman and similar problems in mail delivery without necessarily identifying or isolating these problems.

Personal Note: The collection of papers in this special issue cover the operational aspects of postal services. It had been my hope to describe the operations research and computer applications in such areas as corporate strategy formulations and financial planning and control. I was hopeful that the papers would cover both variety and depth. In as much as the variety of problems and depth of analysis are covered, the papers illustrate these very well when we consider the operational problems in local postal facilities. A brief review of some corporate strategy and financial applications contained in Gupta and Krajewski’s survey paper indicates the nature of analysis required to apply operations research to top managerial decisions. Further, the papers included in this special issue are applications-oriented and can be directly used for solving several postal problems. It is my belief that practicality is more desirable and useful than sophistication[3]. I don’t want to exclude sophistication either and do invite the readers and authors to publish such papers in future issues of C&OR.

Acknowledgements-The preparation of this special issue has benefitted from several discussions and other contributions by a number of persons. I would like to acknowledge these individuals for their valuable contributions. Specifically, I am thankful to our editor, Dr. Samuel J. Raff for his encouragement and perseverance with me. Sam’s unending support and patience acted as the main source for me to go on even when all else indicated that I should give up the project. Messrs John F. Aiepa and Norman W. Chlosta of U.S. Postal Service, Drs. Milton L. Smith and S. S. Panwalker of Texas Tech University, Drs. L. J. Krajewski and S. Mitric of the Ohio State University and Dr. Curtis J. Tompkins of the University of Virginia provided excellent reviews that improved the quality of papers included in this special issue.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge my appreciation and gratitude to Mr. John L. Gentile, Assistant Postmaster General for Finance at the U.S. Postal Service, who first introduced me to postal services and encouraged me to look into various critical postal problems. Without his encouragement, support. and persuasion, I would not be in a position to edit this special issue.

JATINDER N. D. GUPTA

Guest Editor

REFERENCES

I. C. C. Benda, Postal policy: issues, interests and options, Working Puper, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. (1977). 2. D. R. Ewing and R. K. Salaman, The postal crisis: the postal function as a communications service, U.S. Department of

Commerce, Washington. D.C. (1977). 3. J. N. D. Gupta, Management science implementation: experiences of a practicing OR manager Interfaces 7, No. 3 (May

1977). 4. National Research Council, Electronic Message Sy.rrems for rIie U.S. Posraf Seruice, Report of the U.S. Postai Service

Support Panel, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (1976).