In the line of service, we are proud of what we have been able to accomplish in a relatively short period of time. Remember, we took over an organization that was many, many years old. A lot of systems had developed in that period. And, with the lethargy that normally sets in in an organization that is responsible to many politicians, these sytems were not changed-at least not very much-in many, many years.

Our measurable service, backed up with facts and figures, is a lot better than when the Postal Service came into existence. For example, on a national basis complaints reported to and by postmasters and post offices are down a lot—over 16 percent since the beginning of the year! (ODIS Figures)

So, in my view and in the view of the real rather than imagined experts who are constantly watching the Postal Service, our service is better today than when we took over.

The Postal Service is a communications organization. Our function is to get letters and parcels from one point to another in the fastest, most inexpensive way.

The nation and, indeed, the world is in the midst of a communications explosion. More and more information is being printed and publi-hed and distributed than ever before, and it is not about to stop.

So, we have to come up with alternate methods of getting the mail shipped; methods to better support the good old letter carrier. We have been working on these new forms of delivery-our product so to speak.

Express Mail is one area where we have developed a product in competition with existing forwarding services. Express Mail is the Postal Service's answer to air freight. We offer many options for our service-door to door, door to receiving airport, departure airport to addressee, and airport to airport. This is a service designed to meet a specific market. It offers overnight delivery or, in some cases, sameday delivery. It is fast. It is accurate. Best of all, it is competitively priced. The service has been tested and it is successful. It operates in over 50 cities right now, with overseas expansion planned in the near future. We feel we will be able to make a significant dent in our competitor's service with Express Mail.

Lockbox Service is a second service development and improvement. I am sure you all know what a lockbox is. It is that little box in a nest of little boxes along the wall of your local post office. But, in reality that is only a small part of lockbox service. You have all mailed orders and bills and questionnaires back to Post Office Box “whatever” in "whatever” city. Well, this is lockbox service for major mail receivers. The mail is bagged (never really getting into one box) and prepared

for delivery. In many instances a lot of Post Office Box numbers are 1 for one customer, so all the mail has to be prepared for that mailer

to either be picked up or delivered. In this service we have separated his mail for him precluding the need for a mail room. The Postal

Service has been studying lockbox service to make it more adaptable for customers, and we have come up with some changes, such as restructuring the costs of lockbox service to make it more equitable; providing a forwarding service so mail can be sent to one central location from several cities; allowing for utilization of special box numbers so the customer can use an historic or interesting location for his return mail—something which is precluded under present post al regulations.

Automation is another area in which the Postal Service has made a heavy commitment. We have developed sorting machines which take mail to a destination without its being distributed by hand. It is faster and more accurate.

To accommodate those machines, or rather to better utilize them, we have come up with a thing called bar coding. Basically, a bar code is a series of vertical lines of different heights. A machine can read this code, which can contain a full address, and sort it right to its destination bin.

These are just some of the products we have developed which can revolutionize the Postal Service. There are others either in the test stage or on the drawing board; products like facsimile mail, which get a letter from one city to another in a matter of hours. In the future, we can see the telephone being utilized more as a mail communications device, wherein a terminal at one phone could receive a letter from another phone.

What this all adds up to is a deep commitment to the American publie that the Postal Service will continue to provide new and better service utilizing the most modern techniques at the most affordable cost.

I hope I have convinced you that the Postal Service has not had a "fair measure" by its crities. Now, I would like to tell you about what we are doing to give our customers a "fair measure” with our products.

I think we should start this discussion by pointing out that the present state of weights and measures in the post office is not good. Our scales are not the best, and, frankly, they are not the most accurate. There are reasons why they are not either the best or the most accurate. Primarily, it is because there are no Postal Service-wide standards for scales and weights and measures. Local postmasters, in most cases, are responsible for the accuracy of scales which means simply that many scales often go unchecked for long periods, which is bad, or they are not checked scientifically which often is worse.

What does this means to the average postal user? A lot. Almost all of our revenue, in fact, 99 percent of it, comes from measured mail. That is, mail which is charged for on the basis of weight or distance traveled or both. This is true today; it was true two years ago when the Postal Service came into being. Knowing this, you can all imagine

our surprise in learning that there was no real check and balance system in the post office. It was, in effect, up to the local postal people to make sure that they were getting the correct revenue from measured mail.

There are two ways to look at the possible results of this makeshift checking procedure. One is that the customer is like that person who nters a butcher shop to buy a steak and pays for a steak and one butcher's thumb-a thumb which he cannot take home. The other is that the customers are getting a real bargain because there is no way to check if the prices charged are correct.

It is important to point out here just what weights and measures mean in the post office. What do we measure? All mail that goes through our system is measured at one point or another. Why do we measure? To determine the rate which the customer is chared for the item being mailed. To illustrate, first class mail is charged at the rate of eight cents per ounce anywhere in the United States, Canada, or Mexico. Air mail is charged at eleven cents per ounce. Foreign mail is based on the country in both cases.

Parcel Post is a little different. Here the rates are based on both a weight and distance factor. So, a package weighing at least one pound and less than two pounds being sent locally by surface mail costs the customer sixty cents. If that parcel is traveling into the first or second contiguous zone, the cost is sixty-five cents and so forth. Priority mail—the parcel post classification which moves the quickest-costs one dollar for a package weighing between nine ounces and one pound everywhere in the United States. As the weight increases, so do the rates.

When we get into third class mail, the rates become even more complicated; so complicated, in fact, that the charts and regulations fill several pages in the postal manual. You can readily see that weights and measures is the life blood of our business.

How is all this mail measured? With scales-scales in the customer's office; scales in the lobby of each post office; truck scales on loading docks of major postal installations throughout the country; platform scales for entire loads from a customer vehicle; self-service scales in hoth post offices and unmanned postal stations.

Incidentally, rates are not the only thing determined by weights and measures in the post office. Our employee productivity is measured by the amount of mail handled by weight. So, there is an added dimension to the importance of measurement in the postal service.

Now that you know the real importance of scales in the post office, let me get back to where we are today in our weights and measures I program. Let's examine how weights and measures are determined 1 today and who makes those decisions.

The majority of the mail which is handled by the post office already has the postage affixed. This is true for parcels as well as letters. Here,

the customer is responsible for accuracy if he puts the stamp on the parcel or letter. If it is incorrect on the low side, that postage must be recovered, which is the reason we have developed that interesting little stamp "postage due." So, the addressee cannot get the mail until the extra money has been paid.

On the other hand, if the postage is too much, it is also the customer's responsibility. Simply stated, that incident is a shame, but there is nothing we can do to rectify it. We haven't developed a "refund due" stamp yet-nor do we really plan to.

Now, you ask, how do we check to make sure the postage is right. On package mail there is a minimal check. Packages are pulled on a routine spot to weigh them and find out if the customer owes the Postal Service more postage. This is a very spotty operation at best. Letters are seldom checked, unless they obviously look or feel as if the postage is not correct.

Since 60 to 80 percent of all postage is affixed by the customer, you can see that a complete checking operation would be difficult, if not impossible. Can you imagine the outcry from customers if we stopped and weighed each parcel and letter to make sure that the postage was right. If you think the complaints about frequency and speed of service are heavy now, let your mind wonder to that time when we would be spending more time weighing than sorting and delivering.

I am not intimating that the customers try to squeeze the Postal Service pocketbook. The vast majority of our customers who are responsible for putting postage on their mail is honest. After all, it is in the customer's best interest that the Postal Service get to the point of being pay-as you go. No one, except maybe some of our competitors, want to see the Postal Service go under. After all, what would we do with those thousands of red, white and blue boxes?

('ustomer responsibility, therefore, is not our problem. The weights and measures problems of the Postal Service can be found in each post office at the scale by each window and on each loading dock. This is where some one third of our revenue is collected, and this is where we fall down in our checking. The responsibility here for postage lies with each postal clerk. As he weighs each item, he affixes the postage and lets the customer know how much the item will cost to mail. If the scales are correct, the post office receives the correct postage, obviously. If there is error on either the customer's or the post office's side. then the correct money is not received. Therein lies the problem.

As noted lw fore, we know for a fact that scales in each post office are not checked on a regular scientific basis.

We assume, as I pointed out earlier, that the amount of money lost is out weighed by the money gained by inaccurate scales. We assume that. But, consider for example the Chicago Post Office--the largest in the world. If every scale in the main post office in Chicago was off by an ounce, or in dollars and cents, 8 cents, and that error was not in

the post office's favor, consider the amount of money lost to the Postal Service in one single day when our average daily revenue is $1.1 million for Chicago alone! Or, conversely, consider if that error was in the post office's favor. Consider the amount of money we would be

*aking in that was not rightfully ours. }

The money here boggles the mind. And, with all the problems we have encountered in the first two years of our changeover from govtrnment to quasi-private corporate status, we don't need our minds boggled any more than they already are.

Well, that is where we are today—and where we were in the past. All in all, it is not the brightest picture in the business world. Even in the Postal Service, however, hope springs eternal. Knowing the probtms we have had since the Postal Service came into existence, we have had many people studying the areas where we can improve service and make the service more of a break-even proposition.

One of the primary areas of concern has been in our weights and measures efforts. We have, therefore, put out for a bid a research and

development contract for development of a uniform scale allowing i ninimal variance (0-70 pounds). We have been looking at this prob

lem for the past two years, and I am pleased to report that we have made considerable progress.

I contract has been awarded to Fairbanks Morse, and in just 14 months we will have completed the research and development phase of the contract and will be in a position to go into production of scales for every post office in the country. When completed, it will be the

most accurate scale available, combining the age-old science of weights | and measures with the technology of the transistor. This blending of

traditional and new technology will result in a scale that is really a minicomputer, which will give us computerized postage—a digital readout scale that both the clerk and the customer will be able to see. The scale will also compute special services automatically; i.e., special delivery, air mail, priority mail and the like. This scale will leave no room for error on the part of the clerk. Our new scale will also take into account the metric system so it will be as good in the future as it is tolay. That is what we will have. But, even the finest precision scale will be of little use if it is not properly used and tested.

To answer the needs for precise instruments which will always be in tune, we have developed a scale operations and maintenance handbook, and a Postal Service Scale Inspection and Test Program.

In the unparalleled language of the bureaucracy, “The specifications, tolerances and other technical requirements for commercial weighing and measuring devices, as recommended by the National Conference on Weights and Measures and published in the current editions of the National Bureau of Standards Handbook 14. shall be the specifications, tolerances and other technical requirements for weighing and measuring devices used in the United States Postal