Open Forum

  • 1.  Manifest Mailings with Co-Palletization on same mailing

    Posted 07-25-2017 08:51 AM
    We are looking to do manifest mailing and co-palletization on the same mailing. I was wondering if anyone else out there does this currently that could provide some feedback. We are currently having issues with windowbooks not retaining the original unique piece id needed to clear the mail when we co-pal it through windowbooks which prevents the post office from being able to verify the mailing and release it.

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    Travis Sutton
    Director of IT
    Aradius Group
    Omaha NE
    (402) 734-4400
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  • 2.  RE: Manifest Mailings with Co-Palletization on same mailing

    Posted 07-26-2017 05:20 PM
    The unique piece ID problem you have is not actually related to a copal process.  You, like many mailers, are being asked to merge versions of the same job into a single mail.dat file and present as a single job to cut down the work your verifiers have.  There is a limitation in the PDR file spec that the piece ID must be unique in the mail.dat file so if you merge multiple mail.dat files, each with piece ID's starting with 1, you will create duplicate piece ID's and the file will fail PostalOne! validation.  To prevent this, Window Book allows mailers to renumber their piece ID's.  If the job is not manifested you can just do a sequential renumbering which changes the numbers used in all but one job.  The mail verifier will not be able to find the piece ID on the mail piece keyline in the manifest if that is done.  If the job is manifested, you need to choose another option:  We have an option to prepend the original Piece ID with the Job ID or the segment ID since each original job file ends up in its own segment in the merge file.  Some mailers will actually start the piece ID at a number high enough in each job to avoid overlapping piece ID's when merged.  If that is the case the option to not renumber at all can be used. 

    As far as being able to do copal with manifested mail, if the mail can be staged for verification prior to being combined onto pallets, there is no problem at all.  In conveyer based operations where this is not possible, mailers will usually be classified as 'continuous' mailers and the mail will be verified during production well before palletization.  This usually requires a full-time DMU clerk however.  There are other ways to verify non-identical copal mail and the USPS will usually come up with a way to do it, though the verification process is often determined on a case by case basis.  In the past many of these mailers have mailed under an Optional Procedure Agreement instead of a Manifest Mailing Agreement to avoid some of the complexities of doing this kind of verification.  The USPS is getting away from these agreements now and moving mailers to Seamless Acceptance which is the best process for mailers that have the situation where the USPS must verify the mail after copalletization was already done.  Though the USPS may come up with a satisfactory way to verify your mail in the short run, you can bet they will be very anxious for you to move to Seamless Acceptance.

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    Allen Hepner
    Window Book, Inc.
    Cambridge MA
    (617) 441-3500
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