commercial air industry to the Postal Service through the use of a verifiable performancebased compensation system.

     The Postal Service and its customers depend extensively on the completeness, accuracy, and currency of address information in every aspect of their business functions, including list management, mail preparation, and mail processing and distribution. Because all mailpieces require an address to complete the delivery service, any code used to identify mailpieces must include or point to a delivery code. Poor quality of the delivery code directly impacts the cost of postal operations and service performance due to redirection and extra handling. Poor quality also diminishes the value of information inherent in Intelligent Mail.

     As the Postal Service pursues increasing levels of automation to control cost and improve services, the importance of address quality also increases. Enhancing address quality is therefore an important strategy of Intelligent Mail. The Postal Service must ensure that the National Address Database and the National Change-Of-Address Database are accurate and up-to-date. In partnership with licensed and certified vendors of directory services and supporting software, the Postal Service must also support the mailing community in ensuring the accuracy of their mailing lists and postal code generation software.

     The Move Update requirement of Classification Reform, which became effective July 1, 1997, was established to reduce the estimated $1.9 billion annual expense and negative service standard impacts that undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail creates. The requirement specifies that addresses used to obtain all First-Class Mail presorted and automation discount rates must be updated for move activity within 180 days (six months) prior to the date of mailing by a Postal Service-approved method. Address Management has direct responsibility

for all approved methods with the exception of the manual address correction process, which is mailpiece endorsement based. The Address Management processes include the following:

     ACS provides change-of-address (COA) information or reason for nondelivery electronically to participating customers. Each electronic notification costs $0.20 whereas the hard copy rate is $0.70. However, participation in the ACS does not completely eliminate the provision of manual address correction notifications.

     The National Change of Address (NCOA) option is available only through companies licensed by the Postal Service to offer this service. The mailer's computerized list is matched with official Postal Service customer provided permanent COA orders received from individuals, families, and businesses within the past four years.

     A Postal Service-approved alternative method is used when none of the above methods apply and is administered by Address Management.