Mailers should beware of postal officials bearing gifts.
The U.S. Postal Service announced a few days ago a “Technology Credit” of up to $5,000 for mailers who use Full-Service Intelligent Mail Barcodes. But if the Postal Service gets its way, the one-time credit would result in a permanent and ultimately far more expensive price increase for senders of First Class, Standard, Periodicals, and Bound Printed Matter mail.
And it would set a precedent for similar efforts to circumvent the inflation-based price cap on most postal rates.
“The purpose of the Technology Credit is to offset a portion of the investment by mailers in the hardware and software changes necessary to support Full-Service mailings,” the USPS filing said. Mailers already have another incentive to go Full Service by Jan. 26, 2014: After that, only mail with Full Service IMbs will receive automation discounts.
At an estimated cost of $66 million, USPS will provide credits to mailers that have mailings containing at least 90% Full-Service pieces between June 1, 2013 and May 31, 2014.
Here’s the catch: USPS is asking the Postal Regulatory Commission to consider the credits a price decrease for purposes of calculating the price cap for the next round of rate changes. Without such consideration, USPS claims it would be discouraged from offering future credits that promote more efficient mailing practices.
The logic of the request seems to be that the Postal Service would be paying out credits of $66 million to mailers in the coming months, so it should be able to balance that with $66 million worth of price increases next year.
But consider the case of a major magazine that now pays $10 million annually in Periodicals postage and earns the $5,000 Technology Credit. If the Consumer Price Index doesn’t change during the course of 2013, the magazine normally would not face a postage increase next year.
With the Postal Service’s request, however, even with no inflation the Periodicals rate cap would increase an estimated one-quarter of a percent. That increase would cost the magazine almost $25,000.
And if the inflation rate remained zero percent for another year, again the magazine’s postage bill would be $10,025,000 – instead of the even $10 million it would be if the USPS's request is denied
In other words, if the Postal Service is successful, the magazine would get a $5,000 credit this year and in return pay a recurring charge of almost $25,000 annually. With a return on investment like that, no doubt postal officials would look for other one-time credits they could “give” mailers.
The PRC has set a deadline of May 6 for comments on the Postal Service’s proposal.
Other articles about postal price-cap controversies include:
Showing posts with label Intelligent Mail Barcode. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intelligent Mail Barcode. Show all posts
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Donahoe, No Potter Clone, Quickly Making His Mark
Exactly what the new structure means is not completely clear, but what is clear is that more change is coming.
"Today's actions and announcements are the beginning of a much larger process that will involve every level of the organization, including the closure of some Districts. As we continue our restructuring, we anticipate that Reduction in Force (RIF) and Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) processes will be initiated by the end of the fiscal quarter," Donahoe said in a memo yesterday to top Postal Service executives.
Because Donahoe was the right-hand man for his predecessor, Jack Potter, it was widely assumed that he would just follow in Potter's footsteps. But in addition to yesterday's announcement that includes a 16% reduction in the number of senior executives, the Donahoe-led Postal Service has already revealed an expansion of the Forever stamp concept.
What brought joy to many mailers yesterday was the apparent recognition that the Intelligent Mail program needs a management overhaul. Intelligent Mail has moved into the Information Technology department, with Thomas Day (who was Senior Vice President, Intelligent Mail and Address Quality), nowhere on the new organizational chart.
Perhaps the final straw was Day's recent article for Mailing Systems Technology, in which he made false claims about the use of Intelligent Mail barcodes, including that "both the sender and preparer of a mailing can be kept informed as the mailing is processed all the way to the point of delivery." Tracking an individual mail piece to the point of delivery is only available via the Postal Service's Confirm service, which existed before IM barcodes were implemented.
Related articles:
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Un-Intelligent Mail: Another Bungled Postal Regulation
Will the U.S. Postal Service ever learn how to create sensible regulations, or will it continue to find new ways of making the same mistake over and over again?
The latest example of the Postal Service’s regulatory two-step came Friday with the announcement of indefinitely delays to "Full-Service eDoc postage corrections" -- that is, denial of Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcode discounts because of alleged errors -- which were supposed to be implemented on Jan. 2. The ostensible reason was “to give mailers more time to use information from a new report to help correct errors in their electronic documentation,” but there’s more to the story than that.
“The USPS needs more time just as much as, if not more so, than the mailers,” wrote Lisa Bowes, who has reported extensively on Intelligent Mail trials and tribulations at Intelisent’s Postal Affairs Blog. “Making mistakes is a part of learning, but the USPS needs to also learn and try not to repeat its’ mistakes. Setting dates without adequate time to test and implement keeps biting everyone over and over again.”
We’ve seen this dance before, and not just with Intelligent Mail: USPS announces when a new regulation will be implemented, mailers point out flaws with the regulation or the implementation timetable, postal officials forge ahead as planned, and then at the last minute someone at postal headquarters avoids disaster by pulling the plug.
A classic case of poorly considered postal regulations came early last year when USPS announced that the specifications for window envelopes would be changed within a few months, making all currently standard formats illegal. (See It's Curtains for the Window Envelope.) If the bureaucrats who crafted the language had spoken to a few mailers first, they would have realized that their plan would have sent billions of inventoried envelopes and forms to the dumpster.
Fortunately in that case, the proposed regs were taken off the table after only a few days. Unfortunately, the Postal Service has apparently done nothing since then to start the process of getting mailers to switch to window envelopes that work better on letter-sorting machines.
Mailers and their vendors have been saying for months that the Postal Service’s information systems were not ready for it to assess noncompliance penalties for Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcodes (aka FUBAR codes). But in this case, all of the brave "Mission Accomplished" talk from Intelligent Mail executives apparently prevented L’Enfant Plaza from realizing the truth until the eleventh hour.
I’m not saying mailers have to approve or even like every postal regulation. But the Postal Service could anticipate and avoid many problems merely by listening to mailers instead of assuming we’re just a bunch of whiners.
Implementation of the Flats Sequencing System shows how dialog with mailers and mail service providers can help the Postal Service avoid disaster. For example, by discussing its plans for FSS facilities with publication printers a few years ago, postal officials learned that some of the buildings didn’t have enough loading docks or highway access.
The FSS plan originally envisioned all flats being addressed on the top of the back cover, which would have ruined magazines’ most valuable advertising space. The final regulations ended up allowing upside-down addresses at the bottom of the front cover, which met the Postal Service’s needs while causing only minor grumbling among publishers.
Mailers and postal officials have worked together in developing mail-preparation standards that are achievable at the printing plant and should help the FSS facilities operate more efficiently. Declining flat-mail volume and balky machines are big enough challenges for the FSS program, but at least it’s not being hampered by uncooperative customers.
Other articles about Intelligent Mail fiascoes include:
The latest example of the Postal Service’s regulatory two-step came Friday with the announcement of indefinitely delays to "Full-Service eDoc postage corrections" -- that is, denial of Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcode discounts because of alleged errors -- which were supposed to be implemented on Jan. 2. The ostensible reason was “to give mailers more time to use information from a new report to help correct errors in their electronic documentation,” but there’s more to the story than that.
“The USPS needs more time just as much as, if not more so, than the mailers,” wrote Lisa Bowes, who has reported extensively on Intelligent Mail trials and tribulations at Intelisent’s Postal Affairs Blog. “Making mistakes is a part of learning, but the USPS needs to also learn and try not to repeat its’ mistakes. Setting dates without adequate time to test and implement keeps biting everyone over and over again.”
We’ve seen this dance before, and not just with Intelligent Mail: USPS announces when a new regulation will be implemented, mailers point out flaws with the regulation or the implementation timetable, postal officials forge ahead as planned, and then at the last minute someone at postal headquarters avoids disaster by pulling the plug.
A classic case of poorly considered postal regulations came early last year when USPS announced that the specifications for window envelopes would be changed within a few months, making all currently standard formats illegal. (See It's Curtains for the Window Envelope.) If the bureaucrats who crafted the language had spoken to a few mailers first, they would have realized that their plan would have sent billions of inventoried envelopes and forms to the dumpster.
Fortunately in that case, the proposed regs were taken off the table after only a few days. Unfortunately, the Postal Service has apparently done nothing since then to start the process of getting mailers to switch to window envelopes that work better on letter-sorting machines.
Mailers and their vendors have been saying for months that the Postal Service’s information systems were not ready for it to assess noncompliance penalties for Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcodes (aka FUBAR codes). But in this case, all of the brave "Mission Accomplished" talk from Intelligent Mail executives apparently prevented L’Enfant Plaza from realizing the truth until the eleventh hour.
I’m not saying mailers have to approve or even like every postal regulation. But the Postal Service could anticipate and avoid many problems merely by listening to mailers instead of assuming we’re just a bunch of whiners.
Implementation of the Flats Sequencing System shows how dialog with mailers and mail service providers can help the Postal Service avoid disaster. For example, by discussing its plans for FSS facilities with publication printers a few years ago, postal officials learned that some of the buildings didn’t have enough loading docks or highway access.
The FSS plan originally envisioned all flats being addressed on the top of the back cover, which would have ruined magazines’ most valuable advertising space. The final regulations ended up allowing upside-down addresses at the bottom of the front cover, which met the Postal Service’s needs while causing only minor grumbling among publishers.
Mailers and postal officials have worked together in developing mail-preparation standards that are achievable at the printing plant and should help the FSS facilities operate more efficiently. Declining flat-mail volume and balky machines are big enough challenges for the FSS program, but at least it’s not being hampered by uncooperative customers.
Other articles about Intelligent Mail fiascoes include:
Sunday, November 28, 2010
High Costs and Lack of Training Are Barriers To Intelligent Mail
High costs that outweigh any postage discounts and poorly trained Postal Service employees are keeping most business mailers from using Full Service Intelligent Mail barcodes, an extensive study concludes.
Of the 290 business mailers surveyed by USPS’s Office of Inspector General, 58% said they did not use Full Service IMbs because of high start-up costs and software requirements. Only 23% of the surveyed mailers said they were using Full Service.
“The man hours that go into making a mailing Full Service compatible are not worth the postage discount,” said one large mail owner (more than 1 million pieces annually). Another estimated it would have to spend more than $100,000 on new print heads and software upgrades to be able to create Full Service mailings.
The OIG report, released a few days ago, recommended that the Postal Service consider new Full Service incentives “to offset program start-up costs.”
But money is not the only issue, and perhaps not even the biggest one, the report indicated. Mailers will find their mailing vendors – “mail service providers” in postalspeak – reluctant to handle full-service mailings because the Postal Service’s employees and information systems are so poorly prepared to handle them.
The OIG recommended that USPS provide more training to Business Mail Entry (BMEU) clerks and PostalOne! help desk employees. Management largely shrugged off that recommendation, but the OIG considers the issue so significant that it won’t consider the matter closed until it receives written confirmation that corrective action has been taken.
Full Service Intelligent Mail barcodes uniquely identify each mailpiece. IM barcodes are part of the Postal Service’s plan to track and manage mail volumes in an automated way, but Dead Tree Edition has nicknamed them “FUBAR codes” because of the program’s many problems.
The OIG report includes some instructive comments from mail service providers, including these:
Of the 290 business mailers surveyed by USPS’s Office of Inspector General, 58% said they did not use Full Service IMbs because of high start-up costs and software requirements. Only 23% of the surveyed mailers said they were using Full Service.
“The man hours that go into making a mailing Full Service compatible are not worth the postage discount,” said one large mail owner (more than 1 million pieces annually). Another estimated it would have to spend more than $100,000 on new print heads and software upgrades to be able to create Full Service mailings.
The OIG report, released a few days ago, recommended that the Postal Service consider new Full Service incentives “to offset program start-up costs.”
But money is not the only issue, and perhaps not even the biggest one, the report indicated. Mailers will find their mailing vendors – “mail service providers” in postalspeak – reluctant to handle full-service mailings because the Postal Service’s employees and information systems are so poorly prepared to handle them.
The OIG recommended that USPS provide more training to Business Mail Entry (BMEU) clerks and PostalOne! help desk employees. Management largely shrugged off that recommendation, but the OIG considers the issue so significant that it won’t consider the matter closed until it receives written confirmation that corrective action has been taken.
Full Service Intelligent Mail barcodes uniquely identify each mailpiece. IM barcodes are part of the Postal Service’s plan to track and manage mail volumes in an automated way, but Dead Tree Edition has nicknamed them “FUBAR codes” because of the program’s many problems.
The OIG report includes some instructive comments from mail service providers, including these:
- “USPS employees know little or nothing about this service and this is frustrating mailers with the IMB Full Service.”
- “Provide better BMEU training during initial mailings so the clerks and their managers know & understand the process (better than I do - I shouldn't be teaching them).”
- “The PostalOne! help desk most of the time does not have a clue they don’t respond to e-mails all the time and the wait time on the phone is too long.”
- “To make matters worse, even the USPS personnel (in Memphis) are confused as I've had to correct and educate them.”
- For Intelligent Mail, Occasional Failure Is An Option describes reliability problems with the web-based PostalOne! information system.
- Postal Service Chooses "Un-Intelligent" Mail points out that a Postal Service catalog doesn’t use IMbs.
- Full-Service Intelligent Mail? Forget About It, Postal Expert Says focuses on the 10 reasons not to use Full Service IMbs.
- Intelligent Snail: USPS Finally Addressing Crossed-Out Barcodes, which has some interesting comments from postal employees, reports on a failure to retrain letter carriers regarding IMbs.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
For Intelligent Mail, Occasional Failure Is An Option
The head of the Postal Service’s Intelligent Mail program apparently took umbrage yesterday at criticisms of the program’s system outages, but methinks he protesteth too much.
The criticism was posted yesterday on Intelisent’s Postal Affairs Blog, which has been reporting on the various outages of Intelligent Mail systems: “In case yesterday’s unscheduled FAST outage wasn’t a good enough example of instability with the required Full Service Intelligent Mail systems, the USPS comes through again today with another example. FAST is up and running, however the issue of the day is now PostalOne!. In order to qualify for Full Service, electronic documentation is required. Not being able to use the system forces mailers to Plan B.”
Someone identified as “Thomas Day, Senior VP – IMAQ” responded on Postalnews.com (which cited the Intelisent article): “The ‘so-called’ unscheduled outage on Sunday July 25, 2010 was in fact a scheduled outage (see DMM Advisory below). The PostalOne! outage on Monday July 26, 2010 was from 3:07 PM to 3:18 PM Eastern Time - ELEVEN MINUTES. Hardly the type of information that calls for the ‘information’ provided above. We will continue to strive to keep both FAST and PostalOne! performing on a consistent basis.”
Here’s the July 21 DMM advisory he cited: “PostalOne! Server Patching (July 25, 2010): The PostalOne! ® production and Testing Environment for Mailers (TEM) application servers will have security patches applied during the scheduled maintenance window of 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. (CDT) on Sunday, July 25, 2010. The PostalOne! system (including FAST® OPS web services) will be unavailable for internal and external users during this period.”
A bit later, the same person added: “To be very clear, the FAST outage was scheduled on Sunday and extended due to connectivity problems. Customers were updated with information about the extended outage until the system was restored later on Sunday. The PostalOne! outage was unscheduled and lasted Eleven Minutes.”
“Intelisent” responded on Postalnews as well: “With all due respect, the FAST outage was scheduled for 4 hours; however the application was down for 18 plus hours.”
Other commenters were less respectful. “One minute, 11, 111 or 111,111; it doesn't matter how many minutes, it HAPPENED!!!” wrote “OnceAmazedNowAmused”. “And the USPS wants (demands) mailers to use this system? Get a grip! Stop low-balling the IT budgets and giving bonuses to the VP's and design a system that is at least stable enough to put into a production environment. USPS has gone 'kicking and screaming' into the information age and yet demands that mailers use this and many other similarly ridiculously flawed programs. Just one more nail in the coffin...”
And, early today, “please stand by” wrote, “I came in to work today to process some intelligent mail...but instead was told to clock on to 340 and to sit in a room for 3 hours and do nothing....is anybody out there?”
Other articles in recent months demonstrating that Intelligent Mail is not so intelligent include:
The criticism was posted yesterday on Intelisent’s Postal Affairs Blog, which has been reporting on the various outages of Intelligent Mail systems: “In case yesterday’s unscheduled FAST outage wasn’t a good enough example of instability with the required Full Service Intelligent Mail systems, the USPS comes through again today with another example. FAST is up and running, however the issue of the day is now PostalOne!. In order to qualify for Full Service, electronic documentation is required. Not being able to use the system forces mailers to Plan B.”
Someone identified as “Thomas Day, Senior VP – IMAQ” responded on Postalnews.com (which cited the Intelisent article): “The ‘so-called’ unscheduled outage on Sunday July 25, 2010 was in fact a scheduled outage (see DMM Advisory below). The PostalOne! outage on Monday July 26, 2010 was from 3:07 PM to 3:18 PM Eastern Time - ELEVEN MINUTES. Hardly the type of information that calls for the ‘information’ provided above. We will continue to strive to keep both FAST and PostalOne! performing on a consistent basis.”
Here’s the July 21 DMM advisory he cited: “PostalOne! Server Patching (July 25, 2010): The PostalOne! ® production and Testing Environment for Mailers (TEM) application servers will have security patches applied during the scheduled maintenance window of 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. (CDT) on Sunday, July 25, 2010. The PostalOne! system (including FAST® OPS web services) will be unavailable for internal and external users during this period.”
A bit later, the same person added: “To be very clear, the FAST outage was scheduled on Sunday and extended due to connectivity problems. Customers were updated with information about the extended outage until the system was restored later on Sunday. The PostalOne! outage was unscheduled and lasted Eleven Minutes.”
“Intelisent” responded on Postalnews as well: “With all due respect, the FAST outage was scheduled for 4 hours; however the application was down for 18 plus hours.”
Other commenters were less respectful. “One minute, 11, 111 or 111,111; it doesn't matter how many minutes, it HAPPENED!!!” wrote “OnceAmazedNowAmused”. “And the USPS wants (demands) mailers to use this system? Get a grip! Stop low-balling the IT budgets and giving bonuses to the VP's and design a system that is at least stable enough to put into a production environment. USPS has gone 'kicking and screaming' into the information age and yet demands that mailers use this and many other similarly ridiculously flawed programs. Just one more nail in the coffin...”
And, early today, “please stand by” wrote, “I came in to work today to process some intelligent mail...but instead was told to clock on to 340 and to sit in a room for 3 hours and do nothing....is anybody out there?”
Other articles in recent months demonstrating that Intelligent Mail is not so intelligent include:
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Postal Service Chooses "Un-Intelligent" Mail
Why do Postal Service officials sing the praises of the Intelligent Mail barcode and then not use it on their own mailings?An alert reader sent me this scan from her recently received copy of USA Philatelic, a quarterly catalog that the U.S. Postal Service sends to stamp collectors. She says it's the second time she's noticed that the catalog used an old-fashioned Postnet barcode rather than an Intelligent Mail barcode for her address.
An Intelligent Mail barcode (also known as a FUBAR code) has four types of bars that enable it to contain more information than "unintelligent" barcodes that have only two types of bars. In theory, an IMb can uniquely identify each piece of mail. Next year, mailers will be forced to use IMbs to obtain automation discounts.
Perhaps the folks at the Postal Service who are in charge of the catalog decided that using Postnet codes was the base way to get the copies delivered correctly.
For more information about problems with the Intelligent Mail program, please see:
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Full-Service Intelligent Mail? Forget About It, Postal Expert Says
Despite postal discounts, mailers should not implement full-service Intelligent Mail barcodes, a leading postal consultant says in a paper issued today.
Costs of participating outweigh the minimal benefits, and the U.S. Postal Service’s processes and systems are not equipped for Intelligent Mail, Mary Ann Bennett says in “Ten Reasons Why Mailers Should Delay Implementing the Full Service Intelligent Mail barcode”. Bennett is founder of the Mailing Training Institute, President/CEO of The Bennett Group Inc., and a frequent speaker and writer on mailing issues.
“Postal acceptance personnel inducting Intelligent Mail barcode mailings need training and familiarity with new Intelligent Mail barcode mailing procedures," Bennett writes. (Articles on Intelisent's Postal Affairs Blog point out that the USPS's recent directive not to cross out the IMb on misaddressed mail is sometimes unworkable and conflicts with other instructions from the Postal Service.)
The Postal Service has no method of testing whether "software vendors are correctly producing and embedding data in the Intelligent Mail barcode," Bennett writes. "With 'anything goes' data permitted in the Routing Code, even addresses failing the ZIP+4 DPV encoding process produce an Intelligent Mail barcode that appears to be perfectly acceptable."
"Mailers will need to spend money to participate in the Full Service Intelligent Mail program, and it provides them with no ROI benefit," the paper says. Among the costs are new or enhanced software to produce the barcodes, purchase and licensing of Mail.dat software, and payments to vendors (or more software) to interpret Intelligent Mail data. (A publisher told me that a fulfillment company charges his company $1 per thousand to add full-service IMbs to mailing files. Guess what the Periodical discount is for full-service IMb: $1 per thousand.)
For full-service IMb, postage statements must be submitted through the Postal Service's clunky and unreliable PostalOne! website. That site was out of service for five days earlier this month, which significantly increased the cost of preparing mailings, Bennett writes. Both the USPS and mailers are still digging out from the resulting mess.
"Several mailers are experiencing hours of processing time to submit electronic files," Bennett reports. "The USPS has released no information regarding its computer capability upgrades to handle the volume" and has no "real contingency plan" for outages.
Related articles:
Costs of participating outweigh the minimal benefits, and the U.S. Postal Service’s processes and systems are not equipped for Intelligent Mail, Mary Ann Bennett says in “Ten Reasons Why Mailers Should Delay Implementing the Full Service Intelligent Mail barcode”. Bennett is founder of the Mailing Training Institute, President/CEO of The Bennett Group Inc., and a frequent speaker and writer on mailing issues.
“Postal acceptance personnel inducting Intelligent Mail barcode mailings need training and familiarity with new Intelligent Mail barcode mailing procedures," Bennett writes. (Articles on Intelisent's Postal Affairs Blog point out that the USPS's recent directive not to cross out the IMb on misaddressed mail is sometimes unworkable and conflicts with other instructions from the Postal Service.)
The Postal Service has no method of testing whether "software vendors are correctly producing and embedding data in the Intelligent Mail barcode," Bennett writes. "With 'anything goes' data permitted in the Routing Code, even addresses failing the ZIP+4 DPV encoding process produce an Intelligent Mail barcode that appears to be perfectly acceptable."
"Mailers will need to spend money to participate in the Full Service Intelligent Mail program, and it provides them with no ROI benefit," the paper says. Among the costs are new or enhanced software to produce the barcodes, purchase and licensing of Mail.dat software, and payments to vendors (or more software) to interpret Intelligent Mail data. (A publisher told me that a fulfillment company charges his company $1 per thousand to add full-service IMbs to mailing files. Guess what the Periodical discount is for full-service IMb: $1 per thousand.)
For full-service IMb, postage statements must be submitted through the Postal Service's clunky and unreliable PostalOne! website. That site was out of service for five days earlier this month, which significantly increased the cost of preparing mailings, Bennett writes. Both the USPS and mailers are still digging out from the resulting mess.
"Several mailers are experiencing hours of processing time to submit electronic files," Bennett reports. "The USPS has released no information regarding its computer capability upgrades to handle the volume" and has no "real contingency plan" for outages.
Related articles:
- The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants: Why the IMb should really be called the FUBAR code, and how claiming the full-service discount could actually increase a mailer's postage costs.
- USPS: Ve Haf Vays of Making You Use Our Barcode: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the IM program as being unattractive to mailers. The USPS responded that huge penalties will coerce mailers into using the barcodes next year.
- Watch out! It's the IMb Express! Even in 2008, it was clear that the Intelligent Mail program was a train wreck waiting to happen.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Intelligent Snail: USPS Finally Addressing Crossed-Out Barcodes
More than six months ago, published reports warned about a problem with Intelligent Mail barcodes — the practice of letter carriers crossing out the barcode on misaddressed mail. Today, the Postal Service finally got around to correcting the problem.
The January 28 issue of the Postal Bulletin includes an item called “Do Not Obliterate the Barcode” that contained the following:
“The Intelligent Mail® barcode contains important data that is used to provide mailers — including the Census Bureau — with information, such as when the mailing entered the mailstream and undeliverable or address correction information. But technology cannot reliably produce this information if it can’t read the barcode.
"That’s why the Postal Service™ is telling employees to make sure they don’t obliterate the barcode as mail moves through the system. Specifically, employees should not mark through, obliterate, or affix any labels over the Intelligent Mail barcode.”
It also included a reproduction of a poster (below) being used to brief employees on the issue.
Back in July, Monica Lundquist of Window Book Inc. published an item about crossed-out IMbs, and other Web sites subsequently did the same. I'm told that postal officials were made aware of the issue more than a year ago.
Lundquist described what typically happens when a letter carrier ends up with undeliverable mail: "When the carrier determines that the recipient is no longer at the address on the mailpiece, or that the mailpiece is otherwise undeliverable as addressed, the piece is sent to a Computerized Forwarding System (CFS) center for further processing. The CFS sites are where the ACS notices are generated. Before this is done, however, the mail carrier manually crosses out the barcode on the mailpiece so that the piece does not get re-directed to the old or bad address."
That's fine for traditional barcodes. But when it happens to Intelligent Mail barcodes, the Postal Service is not able to process the address correction in the Intelligent Mail program. Mailers using IMbs for address correction are reporting huge problems, which is one reason Dead Tree Edition has referred to full-service IMb discounts as The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants and to IMbs as FUBAR (Failed Unbelievably Bureaucratic Addressing Regulations) codes.
Lundquist noted the problem could be avoided by training letter carriers not to cross out IMbs. But she added, rather prophetically: "However, since there are tens of thousands of mail carriers across the country, the likelihood of this training getting accomplished quickly and thoroughly is not very high."
The January 28 issue of the Postal Bulletin includes an item called “Do Not Obliterate the Barcode” that contained the following:
“The Intelligent Mail® barcode contains important data that is used to provide mailers — including the Census Bureau — with information, such as when the mailing entered the mailstream and undeliverable or address correction information. But technology cannot reliably produce this information if it can’t read the barcode.
"That’s why the Postal Service™ is telling employees to make sure they don’t obliterate the barcode as mail moves through the system. Specifically, employees should not mark through, obliterate, or affix any labels over the Intelligent Mail barcode.”
It also included a reproduction of a poster (below) being used to brief employees on the issue.
Back in July, Monica Lundquist of Window Book Inc. published an item about crossed-out IMbs, and other Web sites subsequently did the same. I'm told that postal officials were made aware of the issue more than a year ago.
Lundquist described what typically happens when a letter carrier ends up with undeliverable mail: "When the carrier determines that the recipient is no longer at the address on the mailpiece, or that the mailpiece is otherwise undeliverable as addressed, the piece is sent to a Computerized Forwarding System (CFS) center for further processing. The CFS sites are where the ACS notices are generated. Before this is done, however, the mail carrier manually crosses out the barcode on the mailpiece so that the piece does not get re-directed to the old or bad address."
That's fine for traditional barcodes. But when it happens to Intelligent Mail barcodes, the Postal Service is not able to process the address correction in the Intelligent Mail program. Mailers using IMbs for address correction are reporting huge problems, which is one reason Dead Tree Edition has referred to full-service IMb discounts as The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants and to IMbs as FUBAR (Failed Unbelievably Bureaucratic Addressing Regulations) codes.
Lundquist noted the problem could be avoided by training letter carriers not to cross out IMbs. But she added, rather prophetically: "However, since there are tens of thousands of mail carriers across the country, the likelihood of this training getting accomplished quickly and thoroughly is not very high."
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Everything You Need To Know About Full-Service Intelligent Mail Discounts
The U.S. Postal Service has some mailers in a panic because it is reportedly planning to issue complex, last-minute changes to the rules for Full-Service Intelligent Mail discounts.
Not to worry: After getting a sneak peak at the rules that will supposedly be released Friday to mailers and to the employees who will enforce the rules, Dead Tree Edition offers this simple, exclusive analysis: Using Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs, AKA FUBAR codes) is like having a first-class cabin on a luxurious cruise ship -- The Titanic.
In The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants, Dead Tree Edition explained two days ago a few of the ways the FUBAR code has been a disaster so far. As if to underscore that article's point, postal officials revealed to some mailers today a number of rules changes that they might announce on Friday for implementation three days later on what Lisa Bowes at Intelisent is calling Black Monday. The Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) noted that the proposed changes have to do with "Full-Service IMb Verification procedures and error tolerances and postage consequences.
Bowes sums up postal executives' thinking on the FUBAR code this way: "Let’s acknowledge that there are major issues with Intelligent Mail, but proceed as if 'everything is fine' anyway."
Another of her top ten thoughts today from the "Intelligent Mail think tank": "Let’s write and then continually edit/update at least a dozen different guides and specifications necessary to do Full Service Intelligent Mail."
I know what you're thinking: "OK, Mr. Tree, I'm so interested in these new rules that I can't wait until Friday. I've already called my relatives to tell them I'm skipping Thanksgiving dinner to get to work on this, so give me the details."
Here you go: They're rearranging the chairs on the deck, and the captain insists on trying to break the record for fastest crossing of the Atlantic. Yes, this will be an historic trip. No, you don't want to be on it.
For the foreseeable future, that's all you need to know about Full-Service Intelligent Mail.
Not to worry: After getting a sneak peak at the rules that will supposedly be released Friday to mailers and to the employees who will enforce the rules, Dead Tree Edition offers this simple, exclusive analysis: Using Full-Service Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs, AKA FUBAR codes) is like having a first-class cabin on a luxurious cruise ship -- The Titanic.
In The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants, Dead Tree Edition explained two days ago a few of the ways the FUBAR code has been a disaster so far. As if to underscore that article's point, postal officials revealed to some mailers today a number of rules changes that they might announce on Friday for implementation three days later on what Lisa Bowes at Intelisent is calling Black Monday. The Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) noted that the proposed changes have to do with "Full-Service IMb Verification procedures and error tolerances and postage consequences.
Bowes sums up postal executives' thinking on the FUBAR code this way: "Let’s acknowledge that there are major issues with Intelligent Mail, but proceed as if 'everything is fine' anyway."
Another of her top ten thoughts today from the "Intelligent Mail think tank": "Let’s write and then continually edit/update at least a dozen different guides and specifications necessary to do Full Service Intelligent Mail."
I know what you're thinking: "OK, Mr. Tree, I'm so interested in these new rules that I can't wait until Friday. I've already called my relatives to tell them I'm skipping Thanksgiving dinner to get to work on this, so give me the details."
Here you go: They're rearranging the chairs on the deck, and the captain insists on trying to break the record for fastest crossing of the Atlantic. Yes, this will be an historic trip. No, you don't want to be on it.
For the foreseeable future, that's all you need to know about Full-Service Intelligent Mail.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Postage Discount No Mailer Wants
For an update of this article, please see Everything You Need To Know About Full-Service Intelligent Mail.
With less than a week to go before a new postage discount debuts, knowledgeable mailers want nothing to do with the new program.
It’s officially called the full-service Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb). But as the horror stories and unresolved problems rack up, Dead Tree Edition hereby dubs it the FUBAR (Failed Unbelievably Bureaucratic Addressing Regulations) code. Those of you with military experience know another meaning for FUBAR, and the IM program certainly fits that definition as well.
“Most, if not all, Standard Mailers are steering clear of Full Service ACS [address correction],” Lisa Bowes wrote recently at Intelisent’s Postal Affairs Blog. “Full Service ACS may be pretending to be ready for prime time, but the reviews so far are negative.”
Many Periodicals mailers are also spooked about the Intelligent Mail program after hearing how it cost Time Inc. more than $90,000 in duplicate address-change charges in a period of just two months. Newsweek, often a leader on postal issues in the magazine industry, spread the word among publishers a few months ago that it was not putting any more resources into Intelligent Mail.
Postal officials in charge of the much-delayed IM program gave their usual everything-is-on schedule presentation at last week’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting. (“This ship is unsinkable! Ooh, look at the pretty iceberg.”) And once again they baffled mailers with yet another broken promise. The Association for Postal Commerce (Postcom) summarized the situation this way:
“Despite the Postal Service’s repeated assurances that it would not establish error tolerances and consequences for IMb Full-Service mailings until both the USPS and industry have more experience with the complexities of Full-Service and data can be collected and analyzed, the USPS said its verification procedures and consequences will take effect on November 29, 2009 – the date the IMb Full-Service price differential takes effect.”
The discounts amount to 0.3 cents per piece for First Class mail and a whopping 0.1 cents per piece for Standard and Periodicals. But the penalty for putting unreadable IM bar codes on mail pieces can easily be several cents per piece. The Postal Service has not standardized the process for determining whether such bar codes are readable, so mail that gets the green light from postal equipment at a printing plant might get flagged as unacceptable when it gets to the Postal Service’s sorting machines.
Bowes noted Friday that the IM program’s list of “issues” (problems) has grown to 16 pages, more than 100 items, and offered a hilarious translation of a gobbledygook advisory that IM officials issued that day. Her take on one of the mealy-mouthed statements: “A bunch of stuff is broken, and the USPS knows about them, but it is still full steam ahead.”
One of the issues for which the Postal Service was not prepared is that procedures need to be changed for letter carriers, writes Monica Lundquist of Window Book, Inc. Letter carriers typically cross out the traditional barcode when they handle a mail piece with an old or bad address, preventing the piece from getting redirected to the same bad address after it goes through processing for address-correction notification.
“If the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) is obliterated by the mail carrier, it will not be able to be scanned . . ., which means that the USPS will not be able to process the address corrections in the Intelligent Mail environment.” The solution, she says, is to train letter carriers how to handle poorly addressed pieces that have an IMb, but “the likelihood of this training getting accomplished quickly and thoroughly is not very high.”
Previous articles about the Intelligent Mail train wreck:
With less than a week to go before a new postage discount debuts, knowledgeable mailers want nothing to do with the new program.
It’s officially called the full-service Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb). But as the horror stories and unresolved problems rack up, Dead Tree Edition hereby dubs it the FUBAR (Failed Unbelievably Bureaucratic Addressing Regulations) code. Those of you with military experience know another meaning for FUBAR, and the IM program certainly fits that definition as well.
“Most, if not all, Standard Mailers are steering clear of Full Service ACS [address correction],” Lisa Bowes wrote recently at Intelisent’s Postal Affairs Blog. “Full Service ACS may be pretending to be ready for prime time, but the reviews so far are negative.”
Many Periodicals mailers are also spooked about the Intelligent Mail program after hearing how it cost Time Inc. more than $90,000 in duplicate address-change charges in a period of just two months. Newsweek, often a leader on postal issues in the magazine industry, spread the word among publishers a few months ago that it was not putting any more resources into Intelligent Mail.
Postal officials in charge of the much-delayed IM program gave their usual everything-is-on schedule presentation at last week’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting. (“This ship is unsinkable! Ooh, look at the pretty iceberg.”) And once again they baffled mailers with yet another broken promise. The Association for Postal Commerce (Postcom) summarized the situation this way:
“Despite the Postal Service’s repeated assurances that it would not establish error tolerances and consequences for IMb Full-Service mailings until both the USPS and industry have more experience with the complexities of Full-Service and data can be collected and analyzed, the USPS said its verification procedures and consequences will take effect on November 29, 2009 – the date the IMb Full-Service price differential takes effect.”
The discounts amount to 0.3 cents per piece for First Class mail and a whopping 0.1 cents per piece for Standard and Periodicals. But the penalty for putting unreadable IM bar codes on mail pieces can easily be several cents per piece. The Postal Service has not standardized the process for determining whether such bar codes are readable, so mail that gets the green light from postal equipment at a printing plant might get flagged as unacceptable when it gets to the Postal Service’s sorting machines.
Bowes noted Friday that the IM program’s list of “issues” (problems) has grown to 16 pages, more than 100 items, and offered a hilarious translation of a gobbledygook advisory that IM officials issued that day. Her take on one of the mealy-mouthed statements: “A bunch of stuff is broken, and the USPS knows about them, but it is still full steam ahead.”
One of the issues for which the Postal Service was not prepared is that procedures need to be changed for letter carriers, writes Monica Lundquist of Window Book, Inc. Letter carriers typically cross out the traditional barcode when they handle a mail piece with an old or bad address, preventing the piece from getting redirected to the same bad address after it goes through processing for address-correction notification.
“If the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) is obliterated by the mail carrier, it will not be able to be scanned . . ., which means that the USPS will not be able to process the address corrections in the Intelligent Mail environment.” The solution, she says, is to train letter carriers how to handle poorly addressed pieces that have an IMb, but “the likelihood of this training getting accomplished quickly and thoroughly is not very high.”
Previous articles about the Intelligent Mail train wreck:
Friday, May 15, 2009
Postal Rate Hikes Unlikely Next Year
Inflation numbers released today made it increasingly clear that postal rates are unlikely to increase for two more years.
The Consumer Price Index rose only 0.25% from March to April, the U.S. Labor Department reported today, putting the index 0.7% below the level of April 2008. That means consumer prices would have to rise at an annualized rate above 4.5% for the rest of the year for the U.S. Postal Service to raise rates in May 2010 for the “market-dominant” classes – such as First Class, Standard, and Periodicals.
With the recession tamping down inflation this month and probably next month as well, prices would probably have to rise at an annualized rate of more than 6% in the second half for postal rates to increase at all in 2010.
The Consumer Price Index rose only 0.25% from March to April, the U.S. Labor Department reported today, putting the index 0.7% below the level of April 2008. That means consumer prices would have to rise at an annualized rate above 4.5% for the rest of the year for the U.S. Postal Service to raise rates in May 2010 for the “market-dominant” classes – such as First Class, Standard, and Periodicals.
With the recession tamping down inflation this month and probably next month as well, prices would probably have to rise at an annualized rate of more than 6% in the second half for postal rates to increase at all in 2010.
The Postal Service would still apparently have the ability to adjust rates – such as a new pricing structure for mail going to the Flats Sequencing System – as long as average rates for a class do not increase. And with the money-losing USPS apparently on course to run out of funds within a year, there’s always the danger of it getting special permission to implement price increases that violate the CPI-based price cap.
There's also the question of when mailers will ever receive promised discounts from using the full-service Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb). Some large publishers have spent months testing the program so that they would be ready for free address-correction services on Monday. Now USPS has essentially thrown out that testing and started over, with a new round of testing to start Monday and implementation being at least weeks away.
Some of those publishers are asking for free address correction anyway, even though the Postal Service is not ready to automate the process. But postal officials involved in IMb are too busy issuing statements falsely claiming success to worry about yet another missed deadline.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
USPS: Ve Haf Vays of Making You Use Our Barcode
The Postal Service's Intelligent Mail program might fail because it is not sufficiently attractive to mailers, the Government Accountability Office warned today.
Not to worry, the Postal Service responded. If the tiny Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) discounts scheduled for later this year are not enough to entice mailers, it said, two years from now the huge penalties for not using IMbs will force mailers to change their ways. Starting in May 2011, mail without IMbs will be ineligible for automation discounts, which typically are at least several cents per mail piece.
"Some mailers have said they find the pricing incentives insufficient to recover their investment in the program," said the GAO report. "For example, some large mailers said they invested millions of dollars to update and purchase hardware and software, while some smaller mailers expected to invest tens of thousands of dollars."
Other highlights of the report and the Postal Service's response:
Not to worry, the Postal Service responded. If the tiny Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) discounts scheduled for later this year are not enough to entice mailers, it said, two years from now the huge penalties for not using IMbs will force mailers to change their ways. Starting in May 2011, mail without IMbs will be ineligible for automation discounts, which typically are at least several cents per mail piece.
"Some mailers have said they find the pricing incentives insufficient to recover their investment in the program," said the GAO report. "For example, some large mailers said they invested millions of dollars to update and purchase hardware and software, while some smaller mailers expected to invest tens of thousands of dollars."
Other highlights of the report and the Postal Service's response:
- The Intelligent Mail program "lacks a comprehensive strategy" that includes a detailed plan or "goals and measures of success", the GAO said. The Postal Service agreed to beef up its planning but said the approach recommended by the GAO would drag out implementation too long.
- "USPS and mailers may not be ready for implementation given USPS's short-time period in which to simultaneously design, develop, test, and implement the Intelligent Mail program," the report said. Amen to that!
- An odd statement from the Postal Service: "Despite an extremely compressed schedule, the successful implementation of the Operating System environment on May 11 and the Test Environment for Mailers on May 18 demonstrates how well this effort works." May 11 and 18 haven't occurred yet, and mailers are reporting that the Postal Service is not ready for those key dates. See "Another Delay for Intelligent Mail?"
- USPS "lacks information on costs and savings attributable to the Intelligent Mail program," the GAO said. USPS responded that the program will give it valuable information enabling it to become more efficient but that "there is no sound financial method to specifically attribute these reductions to Intelligent Mail."
- "According to USPS, Intelligent Mail is the most complex project it has undertaken," the GAO report said.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Watch out! It's the IMb Express!
If you’re one of those sick people who like to rubberneck at accidents, keep an eye on the U.S. Postal Service’s Intelligent Mail Barcode initiative. It’s a train wreck waiting to happen.
Industry contacts report continuing frustration getting problems resolved and questions answered regarding IMb, one of USPS’s major strategic efforts. Mailers are having trouble getting postal officials even to discuss the challenges that might derail the program and are questioning whether IMb, already delayed twice, will be ready for implementation next year as scheduled.
USPS last month pushed off implementation of IMb once again to a three-phase process -- as Dead Tree Edition predicted -- that is to begin in May. Some chastised me for improperly abbreviating the name, which USPS refers to as IMb. That seems DUMb to me, but so be it.
Representatives of mailers, printers, and mailing-industry vendors in such organizations as Idealliance and the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) are nearly unanimous in their frustration with the Postal Service’s lack of communication and planning regarding IMb.
“How can we implement IMb when we customers are uncovering things at the eleventh hour? When the switch is flipped will it work?” reads one of a litany of concerns recorded at a recent Idealliance meeting. “There is a lack of direction,” reads another. “We seem to take one step forward and two back."
Some in the mailing industry who must communicate IMb requirements to their own organizations now find themselves in hot water: Their bosses can’t believe the Postal Service’s decisions, planning, and communication regarding IMb could possibly be so bad.
Since the Idealliance meeting, yet another communication breakdown has emerged: Postal officials have decided that mailers must presort addresses before assigning an IMb. That will force mail vendors to undo much of the work they have already done on IMb because they were planning to assign bar codes before presort. Perhaps the Postal Service's IMb folks have been attending the William Burrus School of Customer Relations. (See “When business is down, kick the customers.”)
Intelligent Mail Barcodes are a printing issue as well as a postal issue because there have been questions regarding how well USPS equipment can read IMbs produced by printers’ current inkjet machines. Despite their complaints about implementation, mailers are generally supportive of the IMb concept, which should enable the Postal Service to track mail as it moves through the system, spot problems, and optimize its processes.
A source reports that when he asked an industry expert to explain what was going on with the program, the expert replied that “IMb is too complex for mere mortals to understand.”
To get a taste for the complexity, check out the slide below from an IMB DPP that had MTAC LOL because the TWTDSTR. Translation: At a recent Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting, industry representatives laughed at a postal official's Death by PowerPoint presentation because of this slide in which the type was too darn small to read.
Not that anyone could have understood the slide even if the type had been larger.
Industry contacts report continuing frustration getting problems resolved and questions answered regarding IMb, one of USPS’s major strategic efforts. Mailers are having trouble getting postal officials even to discuss the challenges that might derail the program and are questioning whether IMb, already delayed twice, will be ready for implementation next year as scheduled.
USPS last month pushed off implementation of IMb once again to a three-phase process -- as Dead Tree Edition predicted -- that is to begin in May. Some chastised me for improperly abbreviating the name, which USPS refers to as IMb. That seems DUMb to me, but so be it.
Representatives of mailers, printers, and mailing-industry vendors in such organizations as Idealliance and the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) are nearly unanimous in their frustration with the Postal Service’s lack of communication and planning regarding IMb.
“How can we implement IMb when we customers are uncovering things at the eleventh hour? When the switch is flipped will it work?” reads one of a litany of concerns recorded at a recent Idealliance meeting. “There is a lack of direction,” reads another. “We seem to take one step forward and two back."
Some in the mailing industry who must communicate IMb requirements to their own organizations now find themselves in hot water: Their bosses can’t believe the Postal Service’s decisions, planning, and communication regarding IMb could possibly be so bad.
Since the Idealliance meeting, yet another communication breakdown has emerged: Postal officials have decided that mailers must presort addresses before assigning an IMb. That will force mail vendors to undo much of the work they have already done on IMb because they were planning to assign bar codes before presort. Perhaps the Postal Service's IMb folks have been attending the William Burrus School of Customer Relations. (See “When business is down, kick the customers.”)
Intelligent Mail Barcodes are a printing issue as well as a postal issue because there have been questions regarding how well USPS equipment can read IMbs produced by printers’ current inkjet machines. Despite their complaints about implementation, mailers are generally supportive of the IMb concept, which should enable the Postal Service to track mail as it moves through the system, spot problems, and optimize its processes.
A source reports that when he asked an industry expert to explain what was going on with the program, the expert replied that “IMb is too complex for mere mortals to understand.”
To get a taste for the complexity, check out the slide below from an IMB DPP that had MTAC LOL because the TWTDSTR. Translation: At a recent Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting, industry representatives laughed at a postal official's Death by PowerPoint presentation because of this slide in which the type was too darn small to read.
Not that anyone could have understood the slide even if the type had been larger.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Another IMB Delay?
Postal officials are hinting of another delay in implementing the Intelligent Mail Barcode, just three months after insisting the key initiative was on schedule.
Information-technology issues are causing the latest delay to the ill-fated IMB program, resulting in a three-phase implementation, a source told Dead Tree Edition. A full-service option with rate incentives was supposed to be introduced in May 2009, with IMB becoming mandatory in May 2010.
The U.S. Postal Service decided early this year to delay implementation because of unresolved customer concerns. The IMB will provide a unique identification to each piece and container of mail, enabling the Postal Service (and mailers) to track the flow of mail and to optimize mail handling.
Mailers and their vendors, especially printers, have been complaining for years that their input has been ignored by postal officials who were developing the IMB program. For example, there have been battles over whether the specifications for the barcode itself could be met by the printers' inkjet equipment. MTAC meetings relating to IMB have reportedly become increasingly contentious in recent months, and many issues needed for implementation have yet to be resolved.
Mailers who have tried to prepare for IMB by requesting a mailer identification, as suggested by USPS, have been told they must first have a meeting with a postal employee. Questioning whether USPS could hold meetings with the thousands of affected mailers in time, the mailing community had wondered whether the May 2009 date was realistic. But USPS announced in August that the program was still on schedule.
Information-technology issues are causing the latest delay to the ill-fated IMB program, resulting in a three-phase implementation, a source told Dead Tree Edition. A full-service option with rate incentives was supposed to be introduced in May 2009, with IMB becoming mandatory in May 2010.
The U.S. Postal Service decided early this year to delay implementation because of unresolved customer concerns. The IMB will provide a unique identification to each piece and container of mail, enabling the Postal Service (and mailers) to track the flow of mail and to optimize mail handling.
Mailers and their vendors, especially printers, have been complaining for years that their input has been ignored by postal officials who were developing the IMB program. For example, there have been battles over whether the specifications for the barcode itself could be met by the printers' inkjet equipment. MTAC meetings relating to IMB have reportedly become increasingly contentious in recent months, and many issues needed for implementation have yet to be resolved.
Mailers who have tried to prepare for IMB by requesting a mailer identification, as suggested by USPS, have been told they must first have a meeting with a postal employee. Questioning whether USPS could hold meetings with the thousands of affected mailers in time, the mailing community had wondered whether the May 2009 date was realistic. But USPS announced in August that the program was still on schedule.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Forest Development, Add-a-name, Intelligent Mail
A few items on other sites worth noting:
- "Private forest owners can make more money selling their land for subdivisions than harvesting it for timber," begins a recent item in the Corvalis, Oregon Gazette-Times.
- Add-a-name and drop-a-name are tricks that cataloguers use to reduce their postal costs, as an item in Multichannel Merchant explains this week. I know of one magazine publisher that tested add-a-name a few years ago and wonder whether others have tried it recently now that the incentives are better. Quick explanation: If you have five Periodicals pieces going to the same postal carrier route, adding a sixth piece will make them eligible for a carrier-route bundle, saving more than 50 cents in postage on the five pieces. That sixth piece might have a negative incremental cost.
- Intelisent's Postal Affairs Blog has a brief item explaining the difference between the "basic option" and "full-service option" for the Intelligent Mail Barcode. Isn't "intelligent mail" an oxymoron?
- If you agree that there's more to environmentally friendly paper than recycled content, go to Folio:'s recent piece about sustainable paper and place a comment saying that people should read "I'm an environmental idiot!". Be sure to copy the piece's URL (http://deadtreeedition.blogspot.com/2008/10/im-environmental-idiot.html) into the comment because Dead Tree Edition is still hard to find via search engines. If what you want is in-depth coverage of sustainability issues regarding paper from a buyer's perspective, go to the Sustainability section of PaperSpecs blog.
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