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Postal Affairs Blog

The DMM Advisory has usually been a good source of information. Lately, however, there seems to be a minor communications breakdown that I hope will get resolved quickly. Some examples -

from the 2/19 DMM Advisory -
“Intelligent Mail Services Update
New Presentations: Three new educational presentations will be posted next week on RIBBS>Intelligent Mail Services>Education:
>IMbTM Basic Option
>How to Work with Your Mail Preparer
I>ntelligent Mail: Initial Steps for Mailers”

I realize that it is still technically “next week” as far as this one goes, however - I suggest that a notice doesn’t get posted until the materials are actually there. Going back up to check for them is annoying. Also, these educational Power Points were put together last year by MTAC WG #124. they have been “under review” by the USPS since then, and have been sitting, inaccessible, for an unacceptably lengthy period of time. We’d like to see them posted already.

from the 2/24 DMM Advisory -
“To fully utilize our existing BMC facilities and consolidate transportation, we are changing the flow of mail through the BMC network whereby other classes of mail, including First-Class Mail®, will be processed in these facilities. As part of this transition, we are converting BMCs to NDCs. We began implementation of the NDC concept in May 2009 and this transition continues to date.”
For more details, go to Postal Explorer at pe.usps.com, and click on Federal Registers Notices in the left frame.”

As of today, 2/25, the Federal Register notice referenced above is still not posted for viewing.
Another issue that has come up recently is very short notice to mailing software providers on Postage Statement changes. Edits are being done last minute, with little time for postage statement generation software providers to react to and get out to their customers. The most recent is a simple nomenclature change from BMC to NDC, however, there is a new statement date at the bottom of the forms as well, which means any statement generation tools will be forced to update. The USPS needs to find a happy medium where all quality control and communications are flowing together, at a manageable pace.

Last but not least is confusion stemming from distribution of an 8125 Checklist that was supposed to make things clearer for both USPS acceptance clerks and mailers. See my earlier post regarding FAST Scheduler IDs and FAST appointment numbers. The checklist makes it look like both pieces of information are required, when it is actually one or the other. It should be easier to correct and clarify that information quickly.

Updated 3/1 - I contacted the DMM Advisory folks about the missing items noted above - I’m happy to report that they were very responsive and diligent, and all of the missing items have been posted.