Is It Safe to Assume?
May 21, 2018   Dave Lewis

Why Flats Track So Much Better These Days Our favorite kind of customer service call these days is when a client calls and asks why their scan rates are so much higher lately.  This is one of the nicer benefits of Informed Visibility (IV), the Postal Services’ new mail tracking platform. These higher scan rates are brought to us by a wonderful new thing – the assumed scan event.  Much of the flat mail scanning you see today is based on assumed scans rather than actual scans.  “Whoa,” you may say.  “So you’re just assuming my mail got delivered?”  Well, in a sense yes, but that assumption is based on some pretty good evidence. Before IV, flats scan rates would vary greatly, depending on the sortation and density of the mailing.  Smaller mailings were kind of OK – on a good day we might track 70% of the pieces in a mailing of flats.  But higher density mailings that were sorted to a five digit level were much less reliable.  And carrier route – hardly worth the effort for flats.  Scan rates of 3% to 30%  were not unusual.  The reason?  Most flat mail just didn’t go through much automated sortation.  If a bundle was sorted to a 5 digit Zip or to a carrier, in most cases the mail would bypass all automation, and bundles weren’t being tracked.  It was getting delivered but we weren’t seeing it.  In contrast, virtually all letter size mail is sequenced for the carrier by machine – and scanned.  Flats – not so much, unless they go on a FSS, which is the exception rather than the rule. Most flat mail still doesn’t go through piece sorters – that really hasn’t changed with IV.  However, the Postal Service is tracking a lot of other stuff – containers, trays, and bundles – and relating those scans back to pieces.  They do this based on the nesting that mail service providers provide in their eDocs – the detailed data that is part of every Full-Service mailing.  So, when a pallet of mail (a “container” in postal-nerd speak) is scanned by the Postal Service, they know what pieces of mail are in that container and share that scan with all of the pieces.  The same applies to all of the tray, sack, and bundle scans.  These scans are “assumed” down to the piece level.  So while the piece itself may not be scanned, the Postal Service knows where it is based on its nesting arrangement. Here’s an excellent example:   In this case, the pallet of mail that contained this piece destined for Frederick, Maryland, was:

• Accepted in Baltimore on 4/19 at 11:02 AM – we know this because the container (pallet) was scanned;
• The next day, at 12:32 PM the bundle that contained this piece was scanned as it was sorted in Baltimore.
• This same bundle was nested in a new container a few minutes later based on the bundle sorting operation, and set for transportation to Frederick;
• The next morning (4/21) the bundle was distributed to a carrier at 7:10 AM in Frederick;
• The carrier left the Frederick facility at 10:52 AM that same morning and…
• At 11:42 exited the Zip+4 area for the address. Mail delivered.

So, while this piece of mail was never physically scanned, we can precisely and confidently track it to delivery, because we know what bundle it was in and what pallet that bundle was on.  If this was not mailed Full-Service, we’d have no information.  If this had been mailed before IV, we’d have no scan information.  This is all brand-new stuff. Let’s start tracking those flats!  The results are getting better every day as USPS refines it processes.  Remember, when you Assume, it makes a…um…STAR of U and Me!  Or something like that…

Home