Welcome to AAI's monthly Innovations, where we share with you the best practices in simulation engineering through case studies and industry experience. In this month's issue, we focus on how simulation can be used to reduce operating costs within an automated process, while also reducing service delivery times.

Using simulation to support technology investment decisions at the United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service's (USPS) logistics network is an extremely complex distribution system where millions of dynamic addresses have to be serviced daily within a short period of time. The sorting of mail can happen manually or through an automated process. Automating mail processing and mail handling functions is key to reducing significant labor costs within the USPS.

Simulation modeling gives the USPS an alternative approach to exploring the mail flow through the postal logistics network. It also provides equipment designers and manufacturers with a precise way to analyze and predict accurate throughput for machine and control system designs. As a result, the USPS can confidently predict that the investment in the new technology will meet its service level requirements while reducing operational costs.

In this month's case study we report on how Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, which has been providing the U.S. Postal Service with products and services for more than 12 years, used AAI's simulation modeling to design and build a flexible virtual machine model to evaluate alternative approaches to mail sorting - using mechanical, control and scheduling variables.

To learn more about the United States Postal Service's application of simulation modeling, read the entire case study.

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