This post is in response to the y2k concerns posted by nine fingers.

First let me explain who I am, in order to clear up any reservations about my qualifications regarding postal maintenance issues. Like nine fingers I came up through the ranks and have been a mail processing equipment mechanic, electronic technician, supervisor of maintenance and am currently manager of maintenance at a major Dallas Area postal installation. Like nine fingers I too have spent years training on postal equipment and systems.

Much of what nine fingers relates is accurate as far as processing procedures. However he leaves out some important pieces of information allowing readers to arrive at an incorrect conclusion concerning mail delivery.

Concerns were expressed about the National Directory Support System which is basically THE address database for the country. This database is downloaded to postal sites from San Mateo on a weekly basis containing address changes made in the previous week. In the event of an unavailable directory or corrupted download each site maintains a backup containing all data except VERY recent changes. This has not been an uncommon occurance since the advent of the OCR technology. These events have been transparent to customers with little or no affect to delivery standards.

Nine fingers states that handwritten mail does not process effectivly on our automation when in fact the capability for reading script mail has increased dramatically in the last few years. On a recent visit to Siemens Electrocom (I do this frequently since I am very close to their headquarters) I viewed their most current script extraction process and if these processes continue at this rate RBCS will be scaled back to a minor operation in the very near future.

He also states that all barcode sorters get their sorting instructions from San Mateo through NDSS via telephone. NOT TRUE. Only larger offices utilize this method of data transmission. Most smaller offices load sorting instructions by hand due to lack of ethernet capability. This could also be done in larger facilities and is actually the offical backup plan in case of telco failure or postal hardware problems.

He leads readers to believe that sorting instructions will be affected by clock problems on these barcode sorters. This clock problem is a well known glitch, the outcome of which is at worst a failure to download. In this event the machine software is still in place with sortation data intact, minus the most recent changes.

He expresses concerns about the mortgage payment making it on time if RBCS fails. In fact most financially related mail never goes through RBCS as it is customer preprinted return envelopes with machine readable print and customer applied barcodes.

The hints that have been given to ensure machine readablity are not new. The postal service has been working with private industry for years developing readability standards and providing substantial mailing discounts for customers who follow these standards with their bulk mail.

The largest readability problem that exists to date is with red and green colored envelopes. Usually related to Holiday (Fluff) mail like Valentines, Christmas cards, etc. Most business mail is not in this category.

His concerns about date sensitve ID tag information are invalid as this is a manually compensated component of RBCS. These dates can be manually overridden by operations personel at the barcode sorters.

His statement regarding the impact on RBCS by a failed telco system is true and is a genuine concern on both the postal service and the phone company. However the volume of mail which would be affected by an event of this nature is not significantly large and generally not business related. Therefore not as time sensitive. In that event it could easily be manually processed adding an extra day or two to the delivery time. This would add significant processing cost to the postal service due to the extra labor involved but it would get done.

In the event of a catastrophic failure of communication, power, water, etc. the entire community will be impacted and delivery of mail will be the least of everyones worries. Mail delivery might possibly be slowed considerably but will not cease. Pending restoration of community services mail delivery will continue as it was prior to any large scale event.

The bottom line is the United States Postal Service will continue to provide a quality service for all our customers. (Jeez, I sound like a damn ad don't I..?)

I would like nine fingers to know that I take serious exception to him fanning the flames of Y2K concerns carrying the flag of the USPS.

Be assured you will get your mail... Nor Sleet, nor snow.. etc....

-- Chuck Harper (charper3@email.usps.gov), March 18, 1999

Answers

Chuck --- What is your interpretation of the independent auditor's evaluation of USPS readiness and the "significant challenges" remaining?

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 18, 1999.

Big Dog,

Do you know where the independent report can be found..?? Would like to read it myself.

Thanks...

-- Saint Francis (STFrancis@heaven.com), March 18, 1999.

here ya go Saint with commentary
straight from the source

-- 45 (123@456.789), March 18, 1999.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-post-reply-form.tcl?refers_to= 000cli

External Suppliers: The Postal Service relies extensively on external suppliers that are critical to moving the mail, such as airlines, railroads, and the trucking industry. Obviously, these suppliers are also susceptible to the Y2K problem. Therefore, it is important that the Postal Service become aware of the Y2K status of suppliers to plan and minimize potential disruption in services. Postal officials started to address the supplier issue in June 1998 and, to date, have identified almost 8,000 critical suppliers. As of January 1999, the Postal Service knew the Y2K status of 349 of these 8,000 suppliers. These 8,000 suppliers can be categorized into two groups: headquarters and field.

For headquarters' suppliers, in January 1999, the Postal Service had identified 661 critical suppliers and inquired as to their Y2K readiness. Of these, 312 B nearly half B did not respond to inquiries, so the Postal Service did not know their Y2K status. Of the 349 that replied, the Postal Service determined that 254 are at high risk of not being Y2K ready and 95 suppliers will be ready. Generally, the Postal Service has not developed contingency plans to address how it will move the mail if these external suppliers are not ready for the year 2000.

This from the Inspector General of the USPS. In case anyone new to the forum thinks the Post Office will be ready to handle Y2K please read the information from the link at the top of the page. Thanks Chuck..but I think that I will believe your boss.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), March 18, 1999.

Thank you Mr Harper for your in depth anaylsis of mail processing.You are in the main quite correct in your assumptions and observations. Now let me ask you a few questions.

Since you are close to Arlington and go to ECA a lot, Specifically how much mail does the RCR(Remote Computer Reading) componet of RBCS read at this time? Last I heard, the mini Crays that were being tested at the prototype sites were extracting somewhere in the 50% range of the scripted mail. On any given night Tour3(incoming mail) OCR's have a readability rate 60 and 70%. That means about a third of it needs to be read by something other than an OCR. If you assume the RCR's pull out half of what's left, you still have 15% of the incoming mail which would be read by a non machine.RBCS if it's there.

You stated Operations can defeat RBCS ID tag information to negate the date code componet of the ID tag. Please correct me if I'm wrong but when I qualified on RBCS the ID tag contained the following information: the machine # the mail piece was ran on,date it was ran, the run it was ran,a time of day it was ran and the mail piece # within the run. Now it seems to me if you delete the date/time componet from the system you could not obtain a valid ID tag match. The OSS would kick it out at that time. And the mail piece would have to be read. This means people. Somewhere.

Since the rush to automation has removed the mechanization componet( this is postal talk for the MPLSM, multi position letter sorting machine, a machine with a 17 man crew which until of late did sortation of non machine readable mail. They have been phased out as too costly), when/if RBCS goes down what plans are on place to compensate for the production loss. Is operations going to breakout the cardboard manual christmas cases and throw people in them to work out going mail?

You also stated RCR was doing very well and would be deployed shortly. NCED(the training center in Norman OK) was telling us in 93 that RCR would be online in late 98. Are there any non Ptototype RBCS sites with RCR capability on line today?And if so where?

Lastly, What computers do you use at your ACDCS site as hosts to support your SWYB system?

Let me state my use of a mortgage payment may have been viewed as fanning the flames of Y2K and I apologise for that. Mr Harper is correct that mortgage payments are routinely sent in prebarcoded envelopes.

For those of you non-postal types reading this be advised I wholly agree with MR Harper about your mail being delivered. That's what we do. I however, am not as optimistic as he in my assessment of the integrity of the systems I work on.

-- nine (nine_fingers@hotmail.com), March 18, 1999.

Chuck and nine fingers, let me say, these threads are among the most interesting I've ever read on this forum. Thank you very much for your insight on this critical aspect of Y2K.

Please don't consider this an insult, but I think we now have a new class of computer geeks: Post Office Geeks!!!!

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), March 18, 1999.

Sorry, that should be Post Office Computer Geeks. I don't think the average Post Office worker has risen to the class of "geek," judging from the guys my dad worked with.

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), March 18, 1999.

What a great discussion. I really want to thank Nine fingers and Harper both for this. Wouldn't it be great if we had such people as these two that were on the front lines of the FAA, the grid, etc discussing things with all of us lurking and listening? SIGH...... what bliss that would be. Think its called something like rational?? Maybe honesty? I am getting so sick of Jane Garvey that I hope if a plane really does fall out of the sky, its the one she is on!

Got stamps??

-- Taz (tassie@aol.com), March 18, 1999.

Okay, okay, so now we have a new acronym: POCG (Post Office Computer Geeks) - the whole crowd has got be ex-Army with all those d**m abbreviations.

Regardless - Chuck - can you address the impact of three scenarioes:

Loss of power across a section - say Atlanta (and its airport) are down for 4 days. If planes from such a hub are grounded both ways (can't take off, can't land) this would foul up the national airplane and filght schedules in less than 8 hours. What would be your contingency plans - speaking unofficially of course, but from you as an USPS administrator - for Atlanta and then nationally?

Loss of one or more PDP machines - thus requiring more manual sorting. Now, you have a very low "return rate" or "left over rate" of mail from one day to the next. If the system becomes even 5% less efficient, then after 10 business days, less than 45% of the mail has been delivered. Would the excess not completely clog up the system and stop delivery of even regular, correctly labelled mail?

Loss of power locally - how does one large PO operate if power is down for 12-24 hours? (Assume a 100,000 person city goes dark or has no heating - that station can't do its regular job of feeding and getting fed from its its smaller stations to the town center.)

USPS workers - what is your fall-back from the union if the government/USPS payroll and accouting systems fail - as they may - and no checks can be issued?

Registered mail - many peope may willing to keep their money in the bank and write the usual 20-30 monthly checks to various companies - but only if these custemers could garantee that the check would be received at the other end. Such credibilty would do much to ensure a banking (cash) panic is averted - since these routine checks drive much of the regular econmy. I understand you can handle a certain number of people, however, what are your plans if you get 60 million people wanting registerde mail to prove that they mailed the check in case the company fails to process the check on the other end?

Your corporate performance in January when the 1cent stamp was needed did not demonstrate the ability to plan ahead for thousands (much less millions) of "extra" customers each needing personal attention

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 18, 1999.

Taz - never hope she is on that airplane - it will have innocent people and flight crewmen aboard who don't deserve her fate.

Now, what I do wish is that she is squished in a third class seat for 24 hours waiting to take off: inthe seat immediately behind the exit row above the wing - (the one where she demanded they remove 6 more inches to make room for the window the next row up) - seat-belted in with no peanuts because the women next to her is a hypocondriac who is allergic to everything, and a warning not to leave her seat again because the restrooms don't work on an airport runway in 10 degree weather and no drinks. With a whiney bureacrat behind her and a fat guy next to her.

With no heat, no magazine, and only a filled barf bag to read.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 18, 1999.

Re: "what are your plans if you get 60 million people wanting registerde mail to prove that they mailed the check in case the company fails to process the check on the other end?"

Well, there goes part of my contingency plan . . . Should I gamble with the PO or try to send payments by wire? Hmmm. I'll need to call my mortgage company.

-- Margaret (janssm@aol.com), March 18, 1999.

Thanks for all the responses- didn't know so many were listening. Yes, I have read Corcoran's report, and yes it concerns me from a business standpoint. Please bear in mind that "don't worry-be happy!" is definitely NOT my motto here- I am as concerned as most of you for the coming months. Neither is my motto "TEOTWAWKI". I don't hold that viewpoint for the Postal Service nor for any more critical services.My intent was to point out what I viewed as small inconsistencies and to let people know the mail will be delivered. I am certain of some possible large-scale impact on delivery, as this organization is reliant on non-postal resources for many components of mail service. I am concerned, as are some 700,000+ other people,about receiving a paycheck. My concern is not just with Postal finance process, but other financial institutions as well. Obviously, if airplanes don't fly, mail will be delayed. Delay also occurs if telco systems don't work correctly. The big three criticals(transportation,utilities and communication) for the Postal Service are the same for EVERYONE. If I flip the switch and the lights don't come on, or there is no food on the shelves at Kroger, or I can't call 911 (or anyone else), I think I will suddenly lose interest in what may or may not be in my mailbox. I believe most folks will continue to go to work if they are not physically prevented from doing so and if they feel relatively comfortable leaving their homes and families for 8 hour periods. I believe this because I see too many people who live from paycheck to paycheck.I believe the post office will continue to grind out the mail much like thousands of other companies will keep working, thanks to the human spirit which created the world we live in. Even if the Postal Service received reassurances from ALL our critical suppliers, who's to say this isn't just lip service to keep things level for now? The truth is, there are no alternatives for some components of service- we'll just have to do workarounds. The Postal Service has done well handling other unexpected catastrophies- localized ones like plane crashes and natural disasters, but also larger events like the UPS and American Airlines strikes. I expect we will continue to do what we can, although possibly limited. You might even see me here, poking mail into a letter case (the Ben Franklin method) if bad things happen. Time will tell..........

-- chuck harper (charper3@email.usps.gov), March 19, 1999.

Thanks for all the responses- didn't know so many were listening. Yes, I have read Corcoran's report, and yes it concerns me from a business standpoint. Please bear in mind that "don't worry-be happy!" is definitely NOT my motto here- I am as concerned as most of you for the coming months. Neither is my motto "TEOTWAWKI". I don't hold that viewpoint for the Postal Service nor for any more critical services.My intent was to point out what I viewed as small inconsistencies and to let people know the mail will be delivered. I am certain of some possible large-scale impact on delivery, as this organization is reliant on non-postal resources for many components of mail service. I am concerned, as are some 700,000+ other people,about receiving a paycheck. My concern is not just with Postal finance process, but other financial institutions as well. Obviously, if airplanes don't fly, mail will be delayed. Delay also occurs if telco systems don't work correctly. The big three criticals(transportation,utilities and communication) for the Postal Service are the same for EVERYONE. If I flip the switch and the lights don't come on, or there is no food on the shelves at Kroger, or I can't call 911 (or anyone else), I think I will suddenly lose interest in what may or may not be in my mailbox. I believe most folks will continue to go to work if they are not physically prevented from doing so and if they feel relatively comfortable leaving their homes and families for 8 hour periods. I believe this because I see too many people who live from paycheck to paycheck.I believe the post office will continue to grind out the mail much like thousands of other companies will keep working, thanks to the human spirit which created the world we live in. Even if the Postal Service received reassurances from ALL our critical suppliers, who's to say this isn't just lip service to keep things level for now? The truth is, there are no alternatives for some components of service- we'll just have to do workarounds. The Postal Service has done well handling other unexpected catastrophies- localized ones like plane crashes and natural disasters, but also larger events like the UPS and American Airlines strikes. I expect we will continue to do what we can, although possibly limited. You might even see me here, poking mail into a letter case (the Ben Franklin method) if bad things happen. Time will tell..............

-- chuck harper (charper3@email.usps.gov), March 19, 1999.

Chuck Harper,

Your first post didn't sit too well with me; it smacked (in my perception) of postal management with blood in its eye over "nine fingers'" contribution.

The term, "going postal" has been added to our language by several extreme events at various postal facilities, none of which events were positive and most of which were either openly or by inference laid at the doorstep of Post Office management.

With such background, it would be understandable were you to be such as I had imagined or to be defensive in the extreme.

I am, however, most pleasantly surprised by your continued contributions here. Although you are technically not a "government official", the distinction for many is moot and your attitude and honesty and personal involvement is more refreshing than I can adequately describe.

Thank you, please continue to participate in this forum in all ways, and understand that at least this reader did not view "nine fingers'" post as, ". . .fanning the flames of Y2K concerns carrying the flag of the USPS.", but as simple participation in an ongoing discussion of a civilization-wide event that he had a clearer understanding of a specific portion of than most of us.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), March 19, 1999.

Thanks for your response, Hardliner- I do have a bit of a tendency to get defensive when I hear the P.O. in a bad light(although they are sometimes deserving), but my post was not intended to be critical to Mr.9_fingers- in fact, quite the contrary. The group in which both he and myself are members(maintenance) is probably the most conscious of the nuts and bolts operations of the entire Postal Service.Personally, I feel maintenance folk are a bit higher up on the food chain than many others.Having been in his shoes(and others), I can appreciate his position. I read so much trash about "next window please" and "going postal" that I often overlook valid viewpoints because of the accompanying stereotype included with messages. I would venture to say that MOST people have no idea what actually goes on inside a USPS processing center, yet continue to perpetuate the "postal" stereotype because it is socially acceptable to do so, and too many postal employees either fail to defend it or participate in it. I'm not apologizing for defending the organization I work for, merely giving some insight to others from an inside position. Back to basics: I expect the "bump" in the road might be sizable, but as long as I am able, I (and many more like me) will be here to do my best to help smooth the bump out for customers. I am also a customer!!

I'll keep listening- am going to another site to hassle some airline pilots..........thanks

-- chuck harper (charper3@email.usps.gov), March 19, 1999.

Sir Chuck of the Harper -

No - don't hassle the airline pilots - just make sure they can keep flying (as you pointed out) so you can empty one post office and fill the next!

I appreciate your responses - they, in general - if not in specifics, confirmed that the interfaces and overall concerns I mentioned are valid problems that are not readily solvable. Solveable, as you pointed out, but not readily solved without action.

In that vein, is the USPS going to move to restrict 3rd class, magazines and "junk mail" during this period - assuming of course, that the junk mail peddlers have power, heat, light, and computers to print and address it at all? Do you have specific authority or procedures in place to tell these peddlers to "stop shipment" now? Considering of course that they rely on you for their jobs - I'm not sure they'd appreciate being told "you have to go out of business temporarily" because we can't take your business now.

Also, I asked about 'registered mail" - how will you handle potentially many million more registered letters than usual as people try to protect their checks to finance companies?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 19, 1999.

One thing Mr Harper and my self did not tell all of you was a portion of the mail is trucked after being processed.The general rule of thumb I've seen is if it's within about 200 miles and the truck can get there within a shift(8) hours to allow it to be delivered the following day they'll truck it there.Saves lots of bucks and keeps customers happy.So maybe as the"rolling blackouts" occur it might have a marginal effect.

Mr Cook in GA. About registered mail. It is the least automated of all the mail processing functions. The only system in use for it I am aware of is ADSRM(Automated Data Site For Registered Mail). This is a hand OCR which reads the numbers of a red(Postie slang for registered mail)and prints them on a invoice. It is used to record a lot of reds for say a jeweler or bank which gets lots of them.Other wise every red gets hand written into a log . They log them in and they log them out. Which is why you pay so much for the service.And this leaves a paper trail. If it came up missing you give the number and the search is on. Now as to plans for handling volume with this service you'd have to ask Operations.If the volume you described did occur I have a gut feeling they would be buried. To parady Odd Ball in Kelly's Heros,"I just fix em, I don't know what they do with em".

Of all the plants I've worked the only one which had a full power back up was Anchorage AK. That was due to the nature of the grid up there. I think they will be warm and happy as long as Chevrons oil refinery there keeps cranking out diesel.The rest had marginal to no power backup. It's like this, until about a year ago, how many people did you know who had a back up generator in their back yard?

-- nine (nine_fingers@hotmail.com), March 19, 1999.

Mr.Cook- I am unaware of any plan to restrict mailings of any kind, and doubt the government would allow it anyway. I can only assume if this problem occurs, these classes of mail would be relegated to a lesser priority delivery status. I am but a lowly maintenance employee who knows not what the chiefs are up to. Not being an integral component of delivery and collections, I can only speculate what might be done to accomodate a vast increase in registered and/or certified mail requests. Have my feelers out, will repost if I hear anything promising. Off the subject, I lived in Kennesaw when I was a kid-is the town still a nice quiet little place? I have fond memories of it.

-- chuck harper (charper3@email.usps.gov), March 19, 1999.

Welll - not really, its gotten a lot larger lately - now we have 2 traffic lights on Main Street (Old Highway 41) - one now at the railroad tracks, one just past the bridge over the railroad tracks over towards the new post office. Been there? (There are two zip codes for Kennesaw now, another for Acworth.)

Otherwise, "downtown" is pretty much the same - the hardware store moved over a couple of buildings, but "wildman's" is same as always. The museum and Civil War train are looking really improved - they will be making more improvements after the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield improvements finish this summer.

And, of course, everybody's still required by law to keep at least one serviceable weapon and ammunition in their house.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 19, 1999.