The Three

In late July, the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, the Postal Service and the District of Columbia held a hearing: “The Three Rs of the Postal Network Plan: Realignment, Right-Sizing and Responsiveness” to examine the forward-looking plan submitted recently by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to Congress. The Network Plan was mandated by the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. Representative Danny K. Davis (D-IL) chaired the hearing, which included four panels of witnesses offering perspectives on the topic. In addition to witnesses representing the USPS and postal labor unions, a panel of mailing industry witnesses representing the Association of Postal Commerce (of

We have three buckets for inventories: Raw, Wip and Fig—Raw materials, Work in process and Finished goods. Once the Fig is invoiced, it moves from finished goods to sales and is a claim for payment—an account receivable. Cash goes out of the box for raw materials; cash comes back into the box when the claim is collected. We're looking at three materials inventories and a receivable—a four-step cash-to-cash cycle. This is a true, simple, unvarnished look at the effectiveness and efficiency of a printing business. Throughput velocity is measured by the number of days the three materials inventories and accounts receivable claims exist.