The Intelligent Mail Barcode: Key to the USPS' Future

The following is a contribution from postal commentator Gene Del Polito for OutputLinks. The comments are solely the author's, and the responsible expression of opposing points of view is welcomed. Del Polito also serves as the President of the Association for Postal Commerce (http://postcom.org)

A key provision imposed by Congress within the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 was the requirement that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) monitor and report on the timeliness and quality of mail services over which it exercised dominant market control. This was a requirement postal officials had expected, and, fortunately, they had spent considerable time contemplating how this could be accomplished. It was clear that the USPS needed a cost-efficient way for gathering information on the intake, processing, and delivery of mail. The mechanism the USPS has chosen is a four-state iteration (the Intelligent Mail Barcode, or IMB) of the two-state Postnet and Planet bar codes that are used today.
As far as mailers are concerned, the four-state IMB is vastly preferable to the two-dimensional PDF417 barcode that once had been under USPS consideration. The high-speed production of a readable PDF code presented a formidable technical challenge, and would have required substantial capital investment to devise the kind of equipment that would have been required.

The Postal Service itself felt that the IMB could serve as the backbone to a whole new information system that could be used to monitor and improve internal operations as well as provide mailers with the kind of timely, readily available, and transparent service performance data that it had long requested. Consequently, the USPS mapped out a strategy for deploying IMB-based technology and for enlisting mailer support to produce IMBs that could be used on mail pieces, mail sack tags, and pallet placards. Just recently, it took the first official steps toward implementing that strategy with the publication of a Federal Register notice of its intent to issue a proposed rule governing the role and use of the IMB with automation-rated mail.

In that notice, the USPS made clear that it intended to have the IMB serve in lieu of the Postnet and Planet barcodes that had been used in the past. The IMB would provide the framework for all USPS mail monitoring and service performance functions, as well as serve as a key plank in the platform upon which all future mail processing and distribution would be based.

This is probably the most important Postal Service undertaking since the development and implementation of the delivery point barcode. Getting this right is extremely important, particularly since in today's rapidly changing marketplace the USPS' margin for error is razor-thin. A full-scale implementation of the intelligent mail barcode represents a significant capital investment to both the Postal Service and its customers, and there still are many issues that need to be addressed before several IMB-based programs can be implemented.

For their part, mailers have many questions that they will need to have answered before they are willing to make the kind of commitment to IMB that the Postal Service so sorely needs. For instance, those who have tried to reproduce readable IMBs and full production speed have reported that the specs the USPS has proposed for this barcode are particularly tight, especially for flat mail. For many mailers, reproducing a production-based IMB may be impossible using today's most commonly used printing and addressing technologies.

Producing the IMB on all mail pieces, sack tags, tray labels, and pallet placards represents a significant new cost to mailers. Recognizing mailer worksharing with rates that fully reflect the production and processing costs the USPS can avoid is a long-standing American postal tradition. Mailers want to know how these cost-avoidances are likely to be reflected in postal rates. Mailers also are eager to learn whether they will be the beneficiaries of new information-related services based on the full-scale implementation of IMB. The last thing the mailing community expects to see is that their investment and participation in IMB programs adds little to making mail the kind of compelling proposition that merits continued business investment in mail as a medium for communication and commerce.

The Postal Service has just completed its first round inquiry with business mailers regarding some of the USPS' preliminary ideas on how IMB can be made a fixture in future mail preparation, processing, and delivery. It got an earful of mailer concerns, and, to its credit, the USPS has recognized the need to adopt a more deliberate pace in pursuit of its IMB goals.

The Postmaster General himself has published an open letter to all business customers regarding the many implementation concerns that need to be addressed. At his direction, the planned implementation of the IMB program has been pushed back several months to May 2009, and he has promised to continue to recognize through May 2010 the cost savings the Postal Service appreciates from mailer-applied postnet codes--a step that is sure to be greeted with a sign of relief from those who have said they needed more time to work through their own production transitions to the IMB.

Despite the challenges that still remain, a full-scale use of intelligent mail barcodes in lieu of today's postnet and planet codes is vital to the development of sorely needed tools for monitoring and improving the quality of mail service. Likewise, mailers stand to gain greatly not only from improved mail service but also from a greater degree of operational transparency that could greatly enhance mail's value as a business transactional tool.