I recently caught up with Patrick R. Donahoe, deputy postmaster general and COO at the USPS, on the phone to find out more about a new measuring service using the Intelligent Mail barcode. He had mentioned the service briefly during some remarks at the recent National Postal Forum in Nashville. For almost 20 years, the Postal Service has used what’s called the External First-Class measurement system to provide an independent assessment of the time it takes a piece of first-class mail, once its deposited into a collection box, to be delivered. “The problem going forward is that this represents only a small sliver of mail volume since a substantial portion of our volume is commercially generated,” said Donahoe. “We needed to have a system to measure commercial mail to see how we’re doing against service standards.” To address this issue, the Postal Service developed a process using the full-service Intelligent Mail barcode that follows live mail and compares the delivery performance against established service standards that went live this month. Currently, the Postal Service processes over 100 million pieces of mail with full-service Intelligent Mail barcodes on a weekly basis. “It’s like a gigantic report card,” said Donahoe of the new measuring service. The Postal Service will be using it to measure performance in a specific region of the country and during specific time periods, he noted. And, when performance problems arise, Postal Service can follow the data points and narrow down where any pinch points may have occurred. Using this intelligence, the Postal Service expects to begin releasing reports next year about its commercial mail performance. Here’s how it works: Any mail with a full-service Intelligent Mail barcode will be tracked via barcode sorters throughout the various stages of its route once it has been accepted at a business mailers acceptance unit or a detached mail unit. In addition, the Postal Service will double check in-home delivery using 16,000 samplers who physically record and scan mail with Intelligent Mail barcodes. This is to insure that once a piece leaves the last sorting machine – at which point the assumption is that in-home delivery will be that day – it gets to where it’s going in a timely manner. The USPS has a contract with IBM to handle this last validation step. While full-service Intelligent Mail barcode facilities can currently track in-home delivery dates for the mail they process through the Postal Service, the system Donahoe is discussing aggregates that information for the first time.