U.S. Postal Service Honors 14 Suppliers for Outstanding Performance

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Jun 16, 2014, 01:58 ET

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Postal Service recently recognized 14 companies in the annual Supplier Performance Awards. The awards recognize performance that reduces costs, maintains high levels of service and provides innovative and sustainable solutions.

Companies were recognized in the following categories: Supplier Performance, Supplier Excellence, Supplier Innovation, Supplier Diversity, Supplier Sustainability Excellence, Postal Supplier Council Excellence and for the first time, the Postmaster General's Supplier Award.

"It's essential that we have a world-class chain of suppliers to provide consistently outstanding service to our customers," said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. "Each of you is a significant link in that chain. Working together, we deliver for the American people."

"All the suppliers being recognized here today have demonstrated, in one way or another, continual growth and progress in their contractual relationships with us," said Supply Management Vice President Susan Brownell. "Most importantly, the focus that these suppliers have placed on continuous improvement has played a significant role in helping the Postal Service deliver high quality service to its customers."

The 2013 winners include:

Supplier Performance Award: Eligibility is reserved for the 76 suppliers designated by the Postal Service during 2013 as a "Key Supplier." A supplier is designated as "key" based on business impact, market complexity, spend, and other business considerations. The nomination criteria for this category are patterned after the Supplier Excellence Awards category (described below), but additional factors are used in these selections, such as active involvement in the Postal Supplier Council, active diversity outreach or mentor-protégé programs, and documented progress against supplier development plans. Other factors include significant contributions to Postal Service cost reduction, service improvement and revenue generation efforts.

Deloitte Consulting LLC, Arlington, VA
Marriott Hotel Services, Inc., Washington, DC
Sterigenics, Oakbrook, IL
Wheeler Bros., Inc., Somerset, PA

Supplier Excellence Award: This award recognizes Postal Service suppliers that have demonstrated exemplary contract performance, innovation, and supply chain integration, or played a significant role in helping the Postal Service reduce costs or achieve other strategic objectives.

DTZ, a UGL Company, Boston, MA
Gable Signs & Graphics, Inc., Baltimore, MD
Metro Air Service, Inc., Romulus, MI
World Wide Technology, Inc., Maryland Heights, MO

Supplier Innovation Award: This award recognizes Postal Service suppliers for innovative efforts that benefit the Postal Service in a special way.

Sheehy Mail Contractors, Inc., Waterloo, WI

Supplier Diversity Award: This award recognizes suppliers for their efforts to increase the use, exposure, and development of a diverse supplier base, including efforts to improve access and opportunities for small, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses.

MSC Industrial Supply Co., Melville, NY

Supplier Sustainability Excellence Award: This award recognizes excellence in implementing environmentally preferred business practices that help the Postal Service achieve its sustainability goals and reduce its carbon footprint.

Asset LifeCycle, LLC, Topeka, KS
Pratt Retail Specialties, LLC, Atlanta, GA

Postal Supplier Council Excellence Award: This award recognizes the supplier that made the most noteworthy contribution to the success of the Postal Supplier Council over the last year.

ABM Security Services, Houston, TX

Postmaster General's Supplier Award: The inaugural Postmaster General's Supplier Award is presented to a supplier that the Postmaster General has determined to have provided significant contributions over the years leading to the achievement of critical Postal Service business objectives and whose performance deserves special recognition.

FedEx Corporation, Memphis, TN , Memphis, TN

U.S. Postal Service Supplier Performance Awards — 2013

Deloitte Consulting LLC
Supplier Performance Award

Deloitte is a large global firm that provides highly trained professionals in a variety of areas including consulting, analytics, and technology services. Deloitte's professionals augment Postal Service initiatives, allowing the Postal Service to reduce costs, improve operations, and generate revenue. During FY13, Deloitte provided significant bottom line benefits through its support of 12 of the current Postal Service DRIVE initiatives. (DRIVE is the Postal Service acronym for Delivering Results, Innovation, Value and Efficiency.) Examples of DRIVE projects that Deloitte has worked on include Network Optimization, Workforce Optimization, Secure Digital Solutions, Mail Transportation Equipment Online Ordering Project, and Federal Cloud Computing Exchange.

Marriott Hotel Services, Inc.
Supplier Performance Award

Marriott Hotel Services is a large business that provides hospitality services including lodging, food, beverage and conference center services. Marriott manages the Postal Service's National Center for Employee Development (NCED) in Norman, OK. The NCED housing facility was initially designed to provide housing and food and beverage services to Postal Service employees attending training. In recent years, training volume decreased due to Postal Service staff reductions and the adoption of distance-learning technologies, resulting in underutilization of the facility. In FY13, Marriott marketed this unused capacity to the public, which generated revenue and helped to offset the cost of operations. The facility contracted with the Red Cross, FEMA and other organizations to provide meeting space, guest rooms and meals to relief workers of the May tornadoes in Moore, OK.

Sterigenics
Supplier Performance Award

Sterigenics is a large business that specializes in sterilization services. Sterigenics performs mail irradiation services for the Postal Service and other government offices by exposing mail to high doses of irradiation to treat and destroy potential contaminants, such as anthrax. As part of its preemptive maintenance program, Sterigenics inventories emergency spare parts in excess of $1 million. The preventive maintenance program has been critical in minimizing downtime and achieving an on-time delivery rate of over 99.5 percent over the last three years. The Sterigenics Government Mail Irradiation process has been validated by the National Institute of Science and Technology, and approved by the Office of Science and Technology Mail Security Task Force to Irradiate Government Mail. At present, the Sterigenics Government Mail Irradiation process is the only approved and validated process and supplier for Government Mail Irradiation.

Wheeler Bros., Inc.
Supplier Performance Award

Wheeler Bros., a subsidiary of VSE Corporation, is involved in manufacturing, engineering, inventory management, and distribution of automotive, truck, heavy equipment, industrial parts, and supplies to the Postal Service, Department of Defense and other government agencies. Wheeler Bros. supplies repair parts for all makes and models of more than 211,000 Postal Service vehicles and equipment. It catalogs almost 22,000 items for Postal Service vehicles, including heavy trucks and trailers. Its inventory program is completely Web-based, greatly reducing the clerical workload involved with maintaining a vehicle maintenance facility stockroom. Wheeler Bros. provides proven processes and procedures to ensure customer satisfaction. With the average age of Postal Service vehicles exceeding 20 years, Wheeler Bros. fights a daily battle against obsolete parts. It has responded with outstanding performance to provide the parts necessary to keep the fleet running. Under the Green Purchasing National Strategic Initiative, the Postal Service vehicles management center collaborates with Wheeler Bros. to identify environmentally preferable products (EPP) under the category of "Rebuilt Vehicular Parts." This is the seventh supplier performance award for Wheeler Bros.

DTZ, Boston
Supplier Excellence Award

DTZ, a UGL Company, is a large business that provides facility management, custodial, landscaping, and operations and maintenance services. DTZ became a Postal Service supplier in December 2012, providing cleaning services for 21 districts covering 539 facilities totaling 3.3 million square feet of floor space. Although not required by the contract, DTZ scheduled floor stripping and waxing upon contract award at all sites, providing immediate improvement in facility appearance. DTZ has consistently met challenges head on with open and honest communication, even in difficult circumstances. As an example, when another contractor failed to perform, DTZ stepped in and provided service to approximately 50 sites within one week. Without hesitation, DTZ worked diligently to contact all sites and partner with subcontractors to provide service as soon as possible.

Gable Signs & Graphics, Inc.
Supplier Excellence Award

Gable Signs & Graphics is a small business that specializes in the development, production, delivery, and maintenance of custom designed interior and exterior signs and architectural graphics. Currently, the Gable signage contract supports more than 32,000 Postal Service facilities, as well as 250 Contract Postal Unit locations and 600 Village Post Offices, providing signage that is sustainable and cost effective. To date, more than 45,000 signs have been deployed to more than 80 mail processing facilities. Gable Signs created a Web portal for ordering and fulfillment, significantly streamlining the process. It has donated signage to the Postal Service in support of fallen U.S. military members honored in Post Office renamings.

Metro Air Service, Inc.
Supplier Excellence Award

Metro Air Service is a large business that provides a full range of logistics services including public warehouse, truck transportation, distribution, and terminal handling services at 12 U.S. airports. It acts as a conduit between the Postal Service's air transportation and ground network services, providing scanning services, container preparation and surface transportation. Metro Air Service has repeatedly shown an ability to adapt to quick-changing volumes and a willingness to schedule the right mix of skilled workers to get the mail processed.

World Wide Technology, Inc.
Supplier Excellence Award

World Wide Technology is a large minority-owned business and one of the largest African American-owned companies in the United States. WWT provides the Postal Service with telecommunications hardware, hardware maintenance, installation, wiring, and telecommunications services. Hardware quotations for Postal Service telecom customers are provided quickly, and wiring and installation projects are completed timely, often ahead of schedule. In 2013, WWT provided the Postal Service with 10,000 wireless access points that improved operational performance of its delivery units, generating increased revenue from additional package business and enabling the Postal Service to provide package delivery on Sundays.

Sheehy Mail Contractors, Inc.
Supplier Innovation Award

Sheehy Mail Contractors is a small, family-owned trucking business that provides equipment, personnel, and technology to address transportation demands, ensuring products are delivered safely and on time. As trailblazers in alternative fuel usage, Sheehy spearheaded a compressed natural gas (CNG) pilot with the Postal Service. It is currently operating 10 CNG vehicles with plans for 10 more. Sheehy Mail Contractors is helping the Postal Service meet its sustainability goals. It has been an active participant in the Environmental Protection Agency's SmartWay Program.

MSC Industrial Supply Co.
Supplier Diversity Award

MSC industrial is a large business providing a full range of commercial, off-the-shelf maintenance, repair and operations products in four categories: building and equipment maintenance, custodial, electrical, and industrial products. MSC supplies products to 220 processing facilities and more than 32,000 Postal Service offices, achieving an on-time delivery rate of more than 99 percent. MSC has continued to exceed agreed-upon supplier diversity goals in their subcontracting plan for small, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses (SMWOB). MSC's SMWOB purchases exceeded $4.2 million in FY13, representing more than 17.25 percent of FY13 contract sales to the Postal Service. It has established relationships with 244 SMWOB businesses and continues to add small business supplier partners.

Asset LifeCycle, LLC
Supplier Sustainability Excellence Award

Asset LifeCycle is a small woman-owned business that recycles the Postal Service's excess electronics and waste materials through a no-cost, revenue-generating contract. It shares the majority of the profits from recycling or reselling excess electronic waste. ALC was a key contributor to the Postal Service's winning four Environmental Protection Agency awards for the Federal Green Challenge in 2013. For FY 2013, ALC secured, data-cleaned, sold or recycled more than 2.5 million pounds of Postal Service eWaste, avoiding more than $15 million in the disposal costs and generating more than $1.25 million for the Postal Service. This is ALC's second Supplier Sustainability Excellence Award.

Pratt Retail Specialties, LLC
Supplier Sustainability Excellence Award

Pratt Retail Specialties is a large business that produces corrugated boxes and packaging supplies for the Postal Service's ReadyPost and Expedited Packaging supply programs. During FY13, Pratt provided 8,000 tons of products, including 4,300 tons of expedited packaging and 3,700 tons of Ready Post products. Postal Service specifications allow many products to contain from 70 percent to 100 percent recycled material. Pratt established an innovative recycling program for the Postal Service that recovered obsolete materials and converted them into packaging substrate for new Postal Service packaging.

ABM Security Services
Postal Supplier Council Excellence Award

ABM Security Services, a subsidiary of ABM Industries, is a large business that provides security trained personnel to Post Offices across the country. It has provided security services to the Postal Service since 2004 and has been an active member of the Postal Supplier Council since 2005. As a Postal Supplier Council member, ABM volunteered to participate on a task force to improve performance reviews done between suppliers and the Postal Service. ABM helped create a comprehensive Postal Service Key Supplier Performance Survey, which provided valuable data regarding the selection and improvement of various Key Supplier performance metrics. The updated performance metrics will allow the Postal Service to leverage best practices to drive quality, efficiency, and best value.

FedEx Corporation
Postmaster General's Supplier Award

FedEx has provided expanding domestic air transportation for Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, and First-Class Mail since 2001. In FY13, FedEx carried approximately 90 percent of Priority Mail, 99 percent of Priority Mail Express, and 75 percent of all mail that was transported domestically by air transportation for the Postal Service. In 2013, the Postal Service awarded a new seven-year contract to FedEx that is expected to benefit Postal Service customers by providing for increased service requirements, flexibility for changing capacities throughout the week, reduced minimum contractual commitments, and significant financial benefits.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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SOURCE U.S. Postal Service