Letter bomb: Postal Service again asks for rate increase as automation lags; uncontrollable labor costs, longer delivery times add to agency's problems

Article Abstract:

The Postal Service wants a 19 percent increase in postal rates, which would raise first class postage to 30 cents. Why is a rate increase needed? In spite of a considerable effort, the Postal Service operates partly in the future of automated processes and partly in the past of using a huge work force. Labor costs currently account for 83 percent of expenses. Looking ahead, Postmaster General Anthony Frank expects, 'more change in the Postal Service in the next five years than in the last 200.' By 1995, he thinks, automation could cut 100,000 workyears from operations. Looking ahead, some say that costs will be controllable when automation takes hold. For now, however, less than two years after a 14 percent rate increase, the agency foresees a $1.6 billion deficit in the fiscal year ending Sep 30. Services, too, are a problem: the Postal Service is reducing services just when faced with increased competition.

U.S. Postal Service, Beliefs, opinions and attitudes, Technology application, Postal service, United States. Postal Service, Automation, Mail Processing, Government Agency, Outlook, Failure, Frank, Anthony M.

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Behind the wheel; at Ford Motor, international product development will no longer need travel agents; just computers

Article Abstract:

Ford Motor is developing an international network of computers that will reduce the time and costs involved in vehicle development, as well as eliminate the need for travel agents. The interactive system will enable automotive designers at different locations to interact on the design of new systems. Ford has already eliminated 3,000 employees from its product-development staff and plans to cut 6,000 more jobs by the end of 1997. The company is depending on the network to enable it to accomplish more with fewer employees. The multibillion-dollar corporate infrastructure will be based on hundreds of powerful workstations. The network will include a companywide intranet, a reserve of supercomputers, many optical-fiber networks, and virtual-engineering software designed to reduce product-development cycles. Ford's major rivals, Chrysler and General Motors, are making similar technology investments.

Engineering Services, Engineering for Motor Vehicles, System design, Systems analysis, Telecommunications systems, Automobile industry, Company systems management, Information management, Ford Motor Co., F, Automotive engineering

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In a land of beauty, wilderness stirs awe and some questions; city man in the Gros Ventre asks if the oil interests can't be accommodated; tarns, picas and wild genes

Article Abstract:

il well drilling

Management, Political activity, Petroleum industry, Environmental policy, Natural resources, Wyoming, Sierra Club, Wilderness areas, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming, Wyoming. Department of Game and Fish, Wilderness Society, Getty Oil Co.

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