Distribution 101 Print & Mail

Over the past few years, many printers have realized that adding related services, such as mailing, can make sense and money. The trend is borne out in the latest economic/market research report from PIA/GATF, “Expanding the Print Market Space: Printers' Diversification into Ancillary Services.”

But it's critical to understand mailing services requirements—and the differences between the print and mail environment. Print is largely a manufacturing process in which quantities of media must be printed and finished. Mailing is a process of getting individual pieces of media into the hands of recipients (on time). A missing piece in a print run may not be missed, but a missing tray of mail or bundle in a mailing might spell disaster.

“Printers approach mailing looking to automate everything they can,” says mailing giant Harte Hanks' long-time chief postal guru, Charlie Howard. “Harte Hanks will engage the customer with the goal of designing a mailing procedure that achieves their delivery goals. We'll deliver a single container if that's what's required.”

Historically, mailing operations have always been human-intensive. Walk into a large lettershop and you will see many times the number of people you would find at a printer. Mailers must handle quantities of individual mail trays, flat mail bundles and even (still) mail sacks. While mailing requires a specific set of knowledge skills, mailers cannot afford the lengthy learning curves often associated with precision printing and print-finishing jobs. Mailers must often improvise operations on the fly, configuring a production workflow to meet a specific project demand. Mailers are also (as a rule) more flexible in the types of work that they will accept. Hence, the need to constantly improvise.

As with printing, there are many individual steps involved in the mailing and fulfillment process—from data processing to moving pallets of mail around. A printer's mailing and fulfillment operation may look very different (and have a different material flow) than either their press or bindery areas. Even though mailing may call for greater improvisation, it's critical to plan a smooth mailing or fulfillment physical workflow. To do this, you've got to analyze the steps that are unique to mailing.

The two base mailing applications are addressing and inserting. Addressing methodology will differ depending on whether it's letter-size or flat-size mail. Addressing can take place on a variety of systems. Personalized direct mail letters and forms may be produced on continuous-web digital printers. The color portion of the letter or form is typically offset-printed on a narrow web, then moved to a high-speed laser printer for the (black) variable-data printing and addressing. The finished web roll then moves to the bindery or mailing operation for cutting and folding. Magazines, catalogs, and flat-sized mail pieces may be addressed as part of the finishing process.

The volume of mail going through a lettershop may mean a lot of addressing and envelope-inserting machines will be required. Envelope inserters are relatively low-output systems, with average throughputs of 5,000 to 6,000 finished envelopes per hour. A typical mailing plant may have from five to 50 of these machines. Each inserter will need its own material staging area, one to two operators, and a steady supply of mail trays and pallets for the output. You can be somewhat creative in laying out machinery.

Some shops will place inserters back-to-back; others will drop material between two machines (running the same job), so that inserts can be pulled from a common area. In high-volume plants, conveyor systems may be installed, with inserting machines placed on each side. Finished mail trays are then placed on the outbound conveyor by each machine operator to be carried to a palletization cell. A two-level conveyor can also carry knocked-down cardboard envelope cartons to a central compactor.

Time in mail processing can vary from a day, up to 10 days, depending on volume. Material constantly has to move to and from each machine, so clearly marked staging and movement aisles are essential.

Fulfillment is almost an exclusively manual process. Assembling media (kitting, boxing orders) is done by hand. Fulfillment experts almost universally recommend mocking up a fulfillment job before you start, or even bid on it. Set up the number of tables, workflow and any required machines, such as shrink-wrappers, to gauge what your production will be—and how many people you'll need to achieve the target outputs.

The two other core mailing operations are sorting and shipping. Mail must be prepared according to the U.S. Postal regulations covering its class. Standard Mail and Periodical Mail are the two classes of bulk mail other than First Class. (Standard replaced the old Third-Class Mail category.) Standard has a variety of rates and regulations for both letter-size and flat-size pieces.

Finished mail pieces will first have to be sorted and prepared for shipping according to the rules. Letter-size mail will most often be placed in plastic mail trays (supplied by USPS). Each tray must be properly labeled with a bar-coded label, then sleeved in a USPS-approved cardboard sleeve, and finally strapped with plastic strapping. Believe it or not, mail sacks may still be required for certain mailings, which do not meet postal minimums. I began my “postal” career by tossing hundreds of mail sacks onto pallets, and I can state with certainty that they are no joy to handle. Still, they're a part of mailing, and sack labels and commercially supplied bagging racks make the job easier.

Flat-size mail may be trayed or bundled, then palletized. It can be processed on everything from an envelope inserter to a saddlestitcher. The key position in this step is the person (or persons) at the end of the machine conveyor or bundle stacker who is handling the bundle breaks.

A fairly comprehensive knowledge of postal territory used to be required for this job. But individual inkjet address labels now carry a wealth of information, including the number of bundles belonging to a three or five-digit ZIP code and the individual bundle number of each particular bundle. Which brings us to the most critical point:

A mailing or fulfillment operation may have to expand or contract as jobs go through the operation. That means having to possibly use temporary workers. You won't have the time to conduct extensive training for even your permanent work force. So, it is essential to have labeled, easily followed procedures.

Tray and pallet labels and placards are accurately produced by mailing software. Start by clearly marking out the various work areas in the mailing operation (bindery, addressing, inserting, etc.), so that even new employees know where things will go. Job tickets covering all of the job instructions and identifying all of the inserts and job lots for a mailing are vital.

Most larger mailings will be broken down into many different cells or versions. There could easily be a dozen or more. The differences between cells might be the wording on an insert or an envelope, since mailers will test offer language and financial incentives. An operator grabbing the wrong insert may spell disaster.

Mailers always salt their mailing lists with people whose job it is to check the finished package when it arrives in the mail. A missing or wrong insert will trigger a phone call to the mailer.

Make sure all of your tray tags or pallet placards are in order and available to the machine operators or mail sorters as needed. Flats bundle labels can include the correct pallet number, and as long as the pallet placard is also numbered, it's a no-brainer matching bundle with pallet. For that matter, ensure there are enough supplies of trays and sleeves at each workstation.

Strapping machines will be required for both tray sleeving and flats bundle strapping. These machines are typically portable, and can be rolled to where the work is. But for maximum productivity, make sure that all of your tying and/or strapping machines are maintained and ready for action. A down strapping machine will stop whichever line it's been assigned to.

Back in the day, finished mail simply took a truck ride to the local post office. No longer. The Postal Service got out of the long-distance trucking business a long time ago. Specialized logistics firms now drop-ship the mail throughout the geographic U.S. This has enabled significant postal discounts based upon the mailer's ability to get the mail further into the postal distribution system.

Large printers like RR Donnelley and Quebecor World have their own separate logistics divisions to maximize mail transit efficiencies and postal discounts. You can work with these firms to pick up mail to be drop-shipped as it's completed. This shortens mail deliveries, as well as keeps finished mail from jamming your plant.

Remember, the USPS has very strict acceptance standards for these classes of mail. A malfunctioning inkjet printer or mis-labeled trays or bundles can prevent a mailing from being accepted into the postal system. Fair warning: Disputes with USPS rarely are settled in the mailer's favor. You must have effective quality-control procedures in place, since the financial liabilities can be severe. Pull quality control samples regularly, from all addressing and inserting systems. Don't forget that each mail piece is individual, and have a level of quality (and be in the correct sequence) to make it to the intended recipient.