WESTMINSTER, Md. –General Dynamics Robotic Systems has been awarded $40 million as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman Corporation on the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) Flats Sequencing System (FSS) program. The program will further automate the USPS’ flats mail technologies.

The sophisticated sorting system is designed to sort large envelopes, magazines, newspapers, catalogues and circulars into delivery point order. The FSS sorts mail at a minimum rate of 37,000 pieces an hour.

General Dynamics will provide the Automatic Bundle Separation Unit, the Bundle Distribution Conveyor and the In-Feed Modules, delivering 102 of each. The Flats Sequencing Systems will be deployed in 2008.

Agency Awards Northrop Grumman $874.6 Million Contract For Mail-Sorting System

WASHINGTON, March 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Postal Service has moved forward with another initiative to improve its delivery capabilities by awarding Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation an $874,639,000 contract to build a sophisticated system that will sort “flats” — large envelopes, magazines, newspapers, catalogs and circulars — in the order in which they are delivered.

Letter carriers today spend a portion of their workday in the “office” manually sorting flat mail, a labor-intensive process. The Flat Sequencing System (FSS) — designed in collaboration with Postal Service engineers – sorts mail in delivery sequence at a rate of 16,500 pieces an hour, helping letter carriers start delivering mail earlier in the day.

“The Flat Sequencing System will enable the Postal Service to provide more efficient service to our business customers, who rely on the mail to advertise, generate revenue, and get information into their customers’ hands as quickly as possible,” said Walt O’Tormey, vice president, Engineering.

A pre-production FSS will be installed and tested in Dulles, Va., in August, and nationwide deployment of 100 systems will begin in summer, 2008.

Last year, the Postal Service delivered 53.2 billion flats, consisting of 8 percent First-Class mail, 17 percent Periodicals, and 75 percent Standard mail.

BALTIMORE, March 1, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) — Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has been awarded a $874.6 million fixed-price contract from the United States Postal Service (USPS) to provide 100 Flats Sequencing Systems (FSS) designed to further automate the flats mail stream, which includes large envelopes, catalogs and magazines.

“The FSS award is the latest in a series of programs reflecting our strong relationship with the Postal Service to integrate Northrop Grumman flat mail technologies into innovative postal automation solutions. We have focused on developing a comprehensive system that will enable the agency to realize operational efficiencies, and we are extremely proud and excited at the opportunity to make FSS a reality,” said Vicki Spira, vice president of Postal Automation at Northrop Grumman’s Government Systems Division.

Northrop Grumman’s first generation of flats sorting technologies is in operation at Postal Service processing centers nationwide. FSS represents the next generation of flats automation by sorting mail to the delivery sequence of each carrier, thereby reducing manual sorting. Flat mail is a labor-intensive category of mail to process and deliver due to variations in size and thickness

Northrop Grumman is serving as the FSS prime contractor. The company jointly developed the key technologies incorporated into FSS with Solystic, a company subsidiary in France, and Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. in Arlington, Texas. This team will field a pre-production version of the system later this year, which will be used by USPS to develop system operational procedures.

Installation of the first FSS production units at USPS facilities nationwide is expected to begin in 2008 with the remaining FSS installations scheduled for completion by 2010.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.

From FedBizOpps.com: 

The U.S. Postal Service is conducting market research to identify companies with an interest and capability to provide a mail stowage and retrieval system for its delivery fleet of Long-Life Vehicles (LLV). This will be done in conjunction with implementation of a new Flats Sequencing System (FSS) program whereby large envelopes, magazines, catalogs and circulars will be sorted for letter carriers who must now manually sequence the mail before leaving the office for their routes. As the FSS program is implemented, the plan is to purchase mail stowage and retrieval systems for up to 18,000 LLVs. Deployment would start July 2008 with delivery completed by July 2010.

The LLV mail stowage and retrieval system will be used to assist in loading and unloading mail in the delivery sequence of the route. The system should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate all mail trays (letter/flats) and parcels, and light enough to have only minimal impact on the load carrying capacity of the vehicle. An average daily volume of mail handled by a letter carrier will consist of approximately 18 trays of mail (Letter/FSS flat trays) and 12 parcels. During peak volume periods, the daily volume of mail could be 25% to 50% higher on an infrequent basis.

Press release: 

Herndon, VA—December 6, 2006 — SteelCloud, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCLD), a leading engineering and manufacturing integrator of network centric and embedded computing solutions today announced it has been awarded a contract valued at nearly $10 Million by the U.S. Postal Service Engineering Department to provide specialized servers for the FRIP Program.

The initial contract calls for initial deliveries in early 2007 to the FRIP prime contractor, Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. Postal Automation Division in Arlington, Texas. By summer 2007, additional servers will be installed at select postal locations. In the Fall, the remaining production servers will be deployed throughout the U.S. Under terms of the agreement, the US Postal Service has an option to purchase additional servers for another $2.6 Million within six months of the initial contract award for delivery in the company’s fiscal year 2008. Exercise of this option will result in approximately $12.6 Million in total contract revenue.

SteelCloud has years of experience designing and delivering specialized servers for the U.S. Postal Service. SteelCloud has previously designed servers for this customer which have performed over 100 million hours in similar industrial settings.

“The award is a perfect example of our Company’s ability to design and deliver specialized servers for challenging environmental conditions,” said Clifton W. Sink, SteelCloud CEO and President. “In this case we incorporated active cooling and filtration techniques into our chassis design to cope with mail nap, paper dust and heat. In addition, the servers are designed to withstand shock and vibration normally found in these industrial installations.”

SteelCloud expects to recognize over $140,000 in revenues from the program in the Company’s fiscal first quarter which ends January 31, 2007 and nearly $400,000 in the Company’s third fiscal quarter. Rollout for the production units, valued at over $9,000,000, is planned to occur during the Company’s fiscal fourth quarter 2007 which ends October 31, 2007. All the specialized servers will be delivered in accordance with the Company’s ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - Technology that successfully boosted postal efficiencies in the processing, distribution, and delivery of letter mail will soon be applied to the sorting of what the Postal Service refers to as “flats” — large envelopes, magazines, catalogs, and circulars.

Known as the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) program, the initiative approved today by the Postal Service Board of Governors allows the agency to move forward with plans to employ sophisticated equipment to sort flat-mail pieces for letter carriers, who now must manually sequence this mail before leaving the office for their routes. “Using technology to sort flat mail into the order of delivery for letter carriers will increase efficiency in the office and allow carriers to begin delivering to their customers earlier in the day,” said Walt O’Tormey, vice president, Engineering. “The Postal Service experienced significant benefits in the 1990s by automating the processing and sequencing of letter mail, and we hope to extend these improvements to the processing of flats.”

The FSS equipment is designed to sequence flat mail at a rate of approximately 16,500 pieces per hour. Scheduled to operate 17 hours per day, each machine will be capable of sequencing 280,500 pieces per day to more than 125,000 delivery addresses. Phase I of the program calls for an initial order of 100 FSS machines to be deployed to 33 postal facilities beginning in the summer of 2008.

A prototype FSS was installed earlier this year at the Indianapolis, IN, Mail Processing Annex, where it was tested sorting mail in delivery sequence for carriers in that area. A full-size pre-production machine will be installed at the Dulles, VA, mail processing facility, where it will operate six days a week for one year (August 2007 to July 2008).

As this test proceeds, the Postal Service will study and measure the system’s effect on downstream transportation, logistics, work methods, and other long lead-time activities required to support deployment in 2008. ”Delivery remains our largest cost, accounting for 43 percent of all expenses,” said O’Tormey. ” That, combined with costs to serve almost two million new addresses each year, means we must pursue every opportunity to improve our efficiency and the service we provide to our customers.”

In other action, the Board of Governors approved a fiscal year 2008 appropriation request totaling $153.4 million. This annual request to Congress, as provided under current law, includes $83.5 million in reimbursement for free services the Postal Service is required to provide, including free mail for blind persons and for overseas voting. This appropriations request also includes reconciliation adjustments for previous years based upon final audited mail volumes, which are $24.9 million for fiscal year 2005 and $16 million for fiscal year 2006. In addition, the request includes $29 million for the latest annual installment from the Revenue Forgone Reform Act of 1993.

Under current law, the Postal Service is also authorized to request partial reimbursement for the costs incurred in providing universal service. However, the Postal Service has not requested funds for this purpose since fiscal year 1982.

Also at its meeting today, the Board approved the Postal Service Fiscal Year 2006 Annual Report. The report, available online later this month, highlights USPS’s “24-Hour Clock” — 700,000 men and women of the Postal Service keeping the mail in constant motion to provide the service that customers depend on and trust.