February 2020
The USPS and the USPS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have been focused on maintenance and repair of Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems throughout postal facilities.
Tom Samra, Vice President of Facilities stressed the importance of HVAC equipment to Postal Service operations, to AUSPL, saying that when temperatures are too high computers don’t work properly and employees are uncomfortable. Mr. Samra asked lessors to consider these issues as top priority when requests come in for HVAC maintenance. The USPS Facilities Department has committed to returning a building to comfort level within 24 hours of receiving notice of an HVAC malfunction.
The USPS OIG has also become focused on maintaining postal service HVAC systems. Postal Service policy requires an efficient and effective program for maintaining HVAC systems with a goal of minimum downtime, optimal performance of equipment, and maximum service life. Between September 2016 and October 2018 the USPS OIG evaluated the effectiveness of the USPS’s current HVAC preventive maintenance process in mail processing facilities, which include processing and distribution centers, network distribution centers, annexes, surface transfer centers, remote encoding centers, and international service centers. Preventive maintenance is defined by the OIG as “scheduled, systematic inspection, examination, cleaning, lubricating, adjusting, and servicing activities conducted to retain equipment functionality.”
The OIG’s final report was published in August 2019. The report detailed its findings and included suggestions to management on both the process and the implementation of the process. A sampling of 118 of the 286 mail processing facilities were inspected, including both USPS owned and leased facilities.
Read the entire OIG report here: OIG HVAC Report