Eastern Area is on a roll.
In 2016, Eastern was among the top areas nationwide in First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Parcel Select, Priority Mail and scanning performance.
Eastern leaders say their embrace of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) business improvement principles has been the key to the area’s success.
LSS emphasizes boosting efficiency, reducing waste and improving customers’ experiences.
The area regularly works on dozens of LSS projects at a time, and the number of employees who’ve achieved LSS proficiency has skyrocketed.
Now all Eastern employees have an opportunity to receive training to become yellow belts, a basic level of LSS knowledge.
“We want everybody to be able to talk the language in order to provide a better customer experience. We’re building a culture,” said Brad Golish, Eastern’s master black belt, a designation given to LSS experts.
Eastern’s success is garnering attention outside USPS: Golish and other Eastern leaders were recently selected to present on the area’s success at next year’s Lean and Six Sigma World Conference in Nashville, TN.
Another measure of Eastern’s success: Its districts are starting to adopt the area-level processes.
For instance, Appalachian District used an Eastern-developed procedure to become a national leader in on-time Standard Mail deliveries.
“The things we are doing are working. That gets others to think, ‘We’d better do that too,’” Golish said.