The Microdynamics Group Maximizes Postal Discounts

The Challenge

Like many service providers, Microdynamics has to invest in solutions that can give them the highest levels of flexibility. When one of their clients provided legacy Xerox LCDS input files, Microdynamics needed to find a way to convert these to an alternate format for printing and replace the existing POSTNET™ barcode with the new USPS Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMb) in order to maintain their postal discounts after May 2011.

In the United States, the POSTNET barcode includes just enough information to route the envelope to its destination. The new IMb system tells you who the envelope is from, where it is going, the class of the mail and optionally a unique serial number that allows for full tracking of outbound and inbound mail pieces. In addition to the conversion of the input files, and the addition of the IMb, it was a condition of the project that Microdynamics achieve this without any changes to the originating applications.

Solution

Microdynamics initially made use of the CrawfordTech Operations Express document re- engineering solution to achieve their USPS IMb requirements. By altering the output at the print-stream level, the IMb was implemented without any changes to the originating applications or any middleware solutions. Because CrawfordTech products sit within a common architecture, all the solutions employed by Microdynamics are modular in nature, allowing for an initial low-impact roll-out while allowing the option to scale the system and add extra functionality later.

Thanks to this common architecture, Microdynamics is able to expand the use of their CrawfordTech solution to solve other key business issues and replace two incumbent systems with one easy-to-manage, scalable solution.

In addition to using Operations Express, Microdynamics now makes use of the PRO Indexer software to extract the name and address information from the mail piece. This is then passed through an address cleansing and pre-sorting system (Microdynamics uses Finalist, MailStream Plus, Code-1 and Verimove for CASS/Pave/Presort/ NCOA functions).

Results

The resulting file is ingested by Operations Express to replace and re-sequence the current addresses with the cleansed version.

Since implementing Operations Express for their initial IMb requirements, Microdynamics has gone on to extend their relationship with CrawfordTech to include transformation and processing of PostScript and PCL input files, which allows Microdynamics to enhance their offerings to their customers, improve service for their customers and grow their revenue.

In addition, a recent project involved the use of CrawfordTech products to interpret the values of different OMR marks and convert them to produce Code 3of9 barcodes.

These codes made it possible for Microdynamics to use newer folder and inserting machines at their preferred print site to improve mailing reliability and efficiency.

Conclusion

CrawfordTech’s full range of transactional customer communications products meet a variety of needs for Microdynamics. Not only are CrawfordTech products pivotal to their IMb postal implementation, but the extension of that project to take in document re- engineering, interaction with address cleansing and pre-sorting software, conversion of output in multiple formats and management of OMR marks – all without requiring application changes – means they were able to replace multiple solutions with a scalable approach from a single provider.

We have successfully grown in this market by focusing on invoices and statements and consistently building our expertise. As well as providing a highly customized service for our clients, ensuring we’re adding value to every piece, we are duty-bound to ensure that the delivery of invoices and statements is as cost-effective as possible.