It has been over four years since March 29, 2009 when new addressing standards for large envelopes, catalogs, and magazines went into effect.  Affected classes of mail are Standard Mail, Periodicals, Bound Printed Matter, Library Mail, and Media Mail.  First Class Mail is not affected.  The driver of this change was installation of FSS (Flats Sequencing System) machines scheduled to deploy 100 machines across the country by October 2010. 

The gigantic machines were designed to sort large mailpieces (flats) in delivery point order in trays ready to be delivered by letter carriers.  The new addressing standards were created to position the address in the top half of vertically-oriented mailpieces.  It would make reading the addresses easier for these large pieces of mail, and hence be more efficient.

Well, the great recession got in the way of the deployment schedule.  That was compounded with a continuing dramatic drop in flats volume stemming from a huge price increase on flats postage in May 2007.  Deployment stumbled along for an additional two years completing in fall 2012.  We helped a number of our customers change window positions on large envelopes to accommodate the change.  The large catalog and periodical mailers immediately made the change.

So, what’s new today?  Lately, we have heard about a few automation mailings for flats losing their automation discount because they did not comply with the new standards.  I think some mailers forgot about the rule because deployment of FSS was so delayed, and the buzz around FSS had dissipated over the last 3 years.  I made an inquiry with USPS management in May regarding this apparent awakening of rule enforcement.  I was told that 300 business mail entry personnel have recently trained on FSS induction rules.  Where the rules may have been lax and off the radar in recent years, they are now fresh in the minds of new induction personnel.