Spangdahlem and Bitburg postal operations consolidate Published March 15, 2011 By Senior Master Sgt. Kirk Baldwin 52nd Communications Squadron SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany -- Depending on your outlook, the famous phrase, "All good things ..." can be completed a couple of different ways. First, "All good things must come to an end." is a proverb that dates back to 1374 and could be used to describe the closure of the long established Bitburg Annex postal operation. On the other side of the equation, "All good things will come to pass..." is a perfect description of what is happening at the Spangdahlem Air Base hub post office in light of the consolidation of resources. Depending on your point of view, be it pessimistic or optimistic, there are two ways to look at the combining of postal operations in the Eifel. The Bitburg Annex, established in 1992, was meant to be a stop-gap measure to provide services for Bitburg residents and workers. When opened, it served a population of 1,500 people working and living in the local area. Over the years, the gradual closure of Bitburg could easily be seen through the ever-decreasing numbers of patrons serviced at the annex. At the time of closure, only 70 people and their families were still receiving mail at the location. In light of these decreasing numbers and the increased burden of mail volume here, it was evident that a change needed to be made. The closure of Bitburg was not a spur of the moment decision. Countless meetings were held with leadership, school representatives and postal liaisons. At the end of the day, a solution was agreed upon that would still enable reduced services for Department of Defense Dependents' Schools members and allow the Spangdahlem location to drastically change its overall operation to better serve the entire community. The changes here began even before the consolidation of resources. The entire operation was revamped Nov. 1, 2010. A swing shift was established that reduced mail-processing time from 18 hours to six hours. Along with this shift, the parcel pick-up window hours were extended to 8 a.m. - 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, allowing folks to retrieve parcels 13 hours per day. Changes were also made establishing a new office for customer service where people deploying, changing station, or needing to settle claims issues could be serviced outside the busy main lobby area. In the mail lobby, the additional space left from the movement of customer service was used to establish an expedited service window, allowing customers who were mailing Military Postal Service parcels, using internet postage or driving from Bitburg to move through the busy finance counters more quickly. Perhaps the biggest change, one that is not visible to the average customer, came in the realm of parcel tracking. The crews of both Bitburg and Spangdahlem have been working together to implement changes allowing customers to track personal and official shipments since June 2010. They tinkered with methods to capture barcode data and transmit it to USPS.com. Their efforts led to the successful tracking of more than 65,000 parcels, enabling customers to log-on to check USPS.com/track and with full visibility of their shipments confirm locations. The Web site even offers an e-mail notification function, which can notify customers of parcel arrival before they even leave the house due to the expedited swing shift delivery. While 2010 was a great year for this initiative, the consolidation of manpower is leading to even better things in 2011. The savvy clerks at the hub analyzed new bar coding capabilities developed by U.S. Postal Service in January. These new fields, intended to capture international shipments, offered a way for residents to track any shipment that has a customs form. This means that visibility over the arrival, delivery and dispatch of MPS parcels, something never before offered, is now a reality. As long as patrons keep their customs forms, they can use the same system for tracking domestic shipments to see the status of items sent to and from other military postal locations. This is a first for the Air Force, and the consolidation of operations at Bitburg and Spangdahlem AB made it possible. It can be said that, "All good things come to an end," and given the long and successful history of the Bitburg Annex Post Office, it is a fitting term. Careful consideration was given to how the closure would affect the community and what gains could be made. Therefore, the term, "All good things will come to pass" is an even better description of the many new services, to include longer hours, expedited shipping, parcel tracking and customer service that are happening now and in the future of your new Spangdahlem postal hub.