WASHINGTON – Charlie Bravo, the U.S. Postal Service’s senior vice president of intelligent mail and address quality, announced here at the national postal Forum that automation discounts for use of Intelligent Mail bar code – formerly called 4-State Customer Bar code – will be available for flats mail beginning May 1, 2007.
The bar code lets business mailers track up to 1 billion pieces of mail at a time and also allow mailers to more easily request services such as address correction and confirmation of delivery and enable the USPS to process and deliver mail more efficiently.
The bar code is the latest offering under the USPS Intelligent Mail program. The postal service expects the program, begun in late 2001, eventually to let customers track every piece of mail from pickup to delivery. The bar code will be required in order to receive automation discounts in 2009.
In September 2006, the use of Intelligent Mail barcodes for automation discounts became available for letter mail. Since the reading technology is different on flats than it is on letters, the USPS had delayed the start date for flats.
OneCode Services available with Intelligent Mail include OneCode Confirm for First-Class mail, Standard mail, and Periodicals and OneCode ACS for First-Class Mail flats and Periodicals. OneCode ACS will be available for Standard mail this fall.
