December 3, 2009

Intelligent Mail Service Update

The PostalOne!^® system processes 99.49% Full-Service mailings in less than two hours: With nearly 5,000 Full-Service electronic files submitted between November 15 and November 20, 90% were processed by PostalOne! in less than 10 minutes, and 99.49% were processed in less than two hours. The remaining 0.51% that took longer than 2 hours to process was large volume mailings that are complex in nature and submitted by a limited number of mailers. The Postal Service™ continues to work with this group of mailers to improve performance issues.

Hand-Held Scanning Devices used in Full-Service Verifications: The use of hand-held scanning devices (FS-IMD) has been introduced to assist in Full-Service verifications. Based on feedback from the industry via the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC), the Postal Service has simplified verifications to limit disqualifications of Full-Service mailings to:

- No electronic documentation

- No Intelligent Mail® barcode on containers OR- Intelligent Mail container placards are placed inside (under) shrink wrap

- No Intelligent Mail barcode on handling units

- No Intelligent Mail barcode on mailpieces

Other error types will be documented and supplied to the mailer to help improve mailing quality and assessments for these will be deferred until March 2010. A description of the verification and acceptance procedures can be found in Changes to Acceptance Processes in Support of Full-Service Mailing on RIBBS™ under Intelligent Mail Latest News .

Millions of Mailpieces Processed with Intelligent Mail Full-Service: The Postal Service has processed over 900 million mailpieces with Intelligent Mail Full-Service. Since implementation in May 2009, Intelligent Mail Full-Service customers have submitted 10,000 electronic postage statements.