Cost-Effective and Responsive Mail Service at the National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) operates a mail service for its 21,000 employees located on and nearby its campus in Bethesda, Md. That service uses 54.5 in-house full-time equivalent (FTE) employees to deliver 30,000 pieces of mall to 800 mail stops and post 9,000 pieces of outgoing mail daily. NIH wants to know the most cost effective way to meet the mail service needs of the NIH community in terms of services provided, mix of in-house and contract operations, number of employees, degree of centralization of services, and amount of automation. We studied the NIH mail operation in detail and compared it to mail operations at 10 other organizations. Based on our findings, we recommend that in the short term, NIH utilize a centralized operation without extensive automation and run that operation primarily with inhouse employees. We also recommend that NIH provide cluster delivery service. In the intermediate term, we recommend that NIH stress the evolution to a more efficient operation, and in the long term, we recommend that NIH use a centralized operation staffed by contract employees. Adopting our recommended actions and strategies will result in total, quantifiable, short-term labor savings to NIH of approximately $500,000 annually, intermediate-term savings of approximately $1 million annually, and long-term savings of $1.2 million annually. In addition the number of in-house FTE employees will be reduced by 18.5 in the intermediate term and 54.5 in the long term. Most important, however, service will be timely and the NIH population will be likely to use the mall service rather than other, more costly forms of communication. (AN)