DMM Revision: Address Facing Standards for Presort Bundles on Pallets

Effective September 11, 2008, the Postal Service™ will require mailers to place presort bundles on pallets with the addresses facing up. This placement is needed for effi­cient processing in today’s processing environment and, eventually, for the automated preparation and induction for the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) in the future. This new standard will aid in verifying that the contents are on the correct pallet and will enhance manual distribution of the bundles.

The Postal Service is progressing in the deployment of the FSS to automate delivery sequencing for flat-size mail. We plan to use automated preparation stations to support the FSS. These stations will require bundles to lie flat on pallets to be operationally effective.

We first published notice of this revision in Postal Bulletin 22235 (6-19-08, pages 30–31).

Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM^®)

* * * * * 

700 Special Standards

* * * * * 

705 Advanced Preparation and Special Postage Payment Systems

* * * * * 

8.0 Preparing Pallets

* * * * * 

8.5 General Preparation

* * * * * 

8.5.6 Mail on Pallets

* * * * * 

[Revise 8.5.6 to clarify that presort bundles on pallets must be placed face up by adding new item i as follows:]

i. All presort bundles on pallets must be placed with the addresses facing up.

* * * * * 

We will incorporate this revision into the next online update of the DMM on Postal Explorer^® at http://pe.usps.com and into the next printed edition of the DMM.

— Mailing Standards,
Pricing and Classification, 8-28-08