The U.S. Postal Service this week begins implementing its new Standardized Acceptance and Verification (SAVE) procedures for automatable first class and Standard A (advertising) letter-size mail.
Postal officials said the new procedures were developed in response to mailer requests for “a verification process that is predictable, fair, consistent and documented.”
The new procedures standardize the requirements of such mail preparation verification programs as the Coding Accuracy Support System (VASS); Mail Quality Control, (MQC), Presort Accuracy Validation and Evaluation (PAVE) and Mail Preparation Total Quality Management (MPTQM) — which “provide quality assurance within the mailer’s mail preparation process so that mailings are presented to the USPS are properly prepared and can be handled efficiently.”
Postal officials also noted that corrective actions have been clarified and more diagnostic information will be provided to mailers under the SAVE program which has an error tolerance of 4 percent for the first mailing submitted for processing.
To help mailers adjust to the new procedures, the USPS is proposing that after next March 1 all letter-size mail produced by Multi Level Optical Character Readers (MLOCR’s) and barcode sorters be physically separated from mixed Automated Area Distribution Center (AADC) mail when presented for entry into the mail system.
Mail produced by other means would have to be separated after July 1. But after next March 1 the USPS would prohibit first class letter mail with pre-canceled stamps weighing more than one ounce from being included in the program.
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