February 9 & 10, 2000

MINUTES – MTAC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STANDARDIZED MULTI-PURPOSE POSTAL FACILITY DATABASE

Peter opened the meeting and provided a review of the purpose and goals of the subcommittee. He also reviewed the overall purpose and deliverable for this meeting, which is to finalize a listing of the data elements that must be included in the database. The group spent the remainder of the meeting listing the data requirements that will become part of the database.

After agreeing on the data requirements the group then identified the following actions as next steps:

  1. USPS will put a plan in place that will include the following elements: who is responsible for the effort, the time line for completion, the data collection plan, and implementation plan.
  2. Group will reconvene in late April and the USPS will provide a progress report on actions to date.
  3. At the April meeting the group will discuss formats and applications for external customers to utilize the data.

The attached document is the final listing of those data elements agreed upon.

Name or Description / Cat. /

Rank in Cat.

/ Critical /

Comments

Acceptance by CIN / A / 1 / y / May a mailer have mail of a particular class, shape, and preparation accepted and verified at this facility?
Acceptance hours –
BMEU
Drop Ship
Preferential mail (such as Express, Priority) / A / 2 / y / Drop shipping isn’t acceptance, but it seemed sensible to cluster these hours together. Doubtless, there are other hours that are critical to the USPS, but these are the most important mailer-oriented ones.
Critical entry time by class / A / 3 / y
Hours of operation by function / A / 4 / y / Drop Ship, BMEU, caller service, etc. Obviously, this is also related to other schedules such as retail hours, lobby hours, and so on.
Mail.dat viewer capable? / A / 5 / y / Y/N
Payment options / A / 6 / y / (CAPS, CPP. Permit, MEPPS, PostalOne!, etc)
Sunday/holiday delivery available? / D / 1 / y / Y/N - Schedule?
How many routes by type are there? / D / 2 / RR, HC, CR, business, parcel
How many carriers at this facility / D / 3 / City/rural, contract - contained in AMS
Is mail cased here? / D / 4 / Y/N
City delivery? / D / 5 / Does the office/ZIP Code have city-delivery carrier routes?
Does 1/4 mile "no delivery" rule apply? / D / 6 / Y/N
Delivery Unit delivery expectations / D / 7 / Time from arrival to attempted delivery, by CIN
Schedule of delivery confirmation uploads / D / 8 / daily, hourly, etc
Type of delivery performed by product (CIN?) / D / 9 / Not sure if type of delivery varies by CIN - ??
Facility ID / G / 0 / Y / We think of this as the primary key by which all information can be linked to a facility. Our understanding of a Facility ID is that it might represent a building or a function within a building. For instance, a USPS building will always have a unique ID. If there were multiple functions, such as BMEU, SCF, service facilities, etc. at that location, they would be uniquely identified as well. Thus, a physical location might actually have several Facility ID codes associated with it.
Effective date for facility record / G / 1 / y / Implies multiple records for a facility with different effective dates. This may be more an application issue, but the database needs to track, and dependent applications need to be aware of, dates upon which changes become effective and ineffective. Temporary closures and seasonal changes are good examples of the type of information that could have an obsolescence date. New ZIPs, permanent changes to geography served, and the like probably don’t need to reflect an end date.
Administrative responsibility / G / 2 / District office, area, etc. For the RCSC, for instance, this would reflect the area within which general classification issues should be referred to this office. (It would not deal with special responsibilities, such as nonprofit or Centralized Postage Payment, where a single RCSC serves the entire country.)
ZIP, for zoning purposes / G / 3 / y / Three-digit ZIP
Facility categories / G / 4 / y / (Retail, processing, admin, Acceptance, delivery, AMF, CFS, VMF, service facilities, RCSC, etc)
Facility addresses (mailing, D/S, BMEU, physical, payments, applications, etc) / G / 5 / y / As in current D/S file
Facility distribution type code (SCF, AADC, ADC, BMC, etc) / G / 6 / y
Critical Communications information such as phone, fax, & email addresses - for example:
Customer relations contact
Finance contact
Transportation contact
Building service contact
BMEU contact
Drop ship appointments contact
Logistics contact
Commercial phone #
Emergency (24 hour) number / G / 7 / Y / This is obviously not an exhaustive list. Some, such as building service contact information is probably for USPS use only
PostalOne! Site? / G / 8 / y / Y/N, or as PostalOne! evolves, perhaps there will be different capabilities that will need to be noted
Facility closure dates (retail, bulk mail, D/S) / G / 9 / y
Time zone & daylight savings / G / 10 / y
Finance number / G / 11
Physical characteristics of building / G / 11 / Size, age, utility services, ownership, access, historic status, parking etc. as determined by USPS
Support facilities / G / 12 / Services, equipment, hours, etc
GPS ID, grid, and datum / G / 13 / This and latitude/longitude would be useful if tied to driving directions
Latitude & Longitude / G / 14
Vehicles assigned by type / G / 15 / Vans, tractors, trailers, passenger vehicles, etc. - owned/leased
VMF characteristics / G / 16 / Bays, lifts, etc
Area (ZIP/CRT) served by CIN / P / 1 / y / If mail is worked here
Distribution plan by CIN / P / 2 / n / Operating plan
Level of processing by Content Identifier numbers (expanded CIN) / P / 3 / y / This data may subsume some of the following detailed elements, such as those pertaining to class, presort level, shape, and container.
Classes processed / P / 4 / y
Presort levels processed / P / 5 / y
Shapes processed / P / 6 / y
Container types processed / P / 7 / y
Automation processing capabilities / P / 8 / y
Mechanized handling of parcels? / P / 9 / y
Mail handling equipment / P / 10 / y / Fork lifts, etc
Mail processing Equipment types , capabilities, & schedules / P / 11 / y / Major equipment, such as AFSM100, SPBS, and MLOCR. Linda Kingsley's testimony - capabilities, such as automatic induction, OCR readers, etc. Also, Merlin/ABE - include machine ID
Is Advance supported? / P / 12 / y
Expected processing time for non-delivery units by CIN / P / 13 /

Time from arrival to departure

Clearance times by operation & facility / P / 14
Contingency Plan information / P / 15
Maintenance windows for major equipment / P / 16
Lobby hours / R / 1
Retail Hours / R / 2 / y
Retail services (philatelic, passports, etc) / R / 3
Retail vending / R / 4
Caller service hours / R / 5 / y
PO box section access hours / R / 6
PO box section operations hours / R / 7
Number of PO Boxes by size and vacancy / R / 8
PO box section up-time (last input) / R / 9
QBRM processing? Y/N / R / 10
Business reply mail availability / R / 11 / Time
Last box collection time at Facility / R / 12
Box collection schedule for other boxes served by facility / R / 13
DSAS facility ID / T / 1 / y / Primary link to the Drop Ship Appointment System
Driving directions / T / 2 / y / Depending on origin. From West, on I-90, take exit 12 …Would be useful to link to latitude/longitude and GPS data.
Controlled entry to the yard? / T / 3 / y / Y/N
Drop & pick up capability? / T / 4 / y / Y/N
Driver unloading required at BMEU and D/S / T / 5 / y / Y/N
Dropship discount (ZIP/CRT) by CIN / T / 6 / y / This is NOT the type of mail accepted. It pertains only to the discount level available for drop shipment of mail to this facility
Staging? Size, etc / T / 7 / y / Could be expressed in trailer capacity or area. Probably capacity in terms of trailers would be more useful.
Only Postal drivers may perform in-yard moves / T / 8 / y / Y/N
Miscellaneous transportation restrictions / T / 9 / y
Characteristics of Docks & Doors
Maximum truck length
Dock dimensions - height, width, & depth
Input or output
Restrictions
Pallet handling capability
Induction devices / T / 10 / Y / It seems important that the database be aware of capabilities for each door so that inbound and outbound mail can be appropriately routed. For mailers, it is critical to be aware of some of this data for transportation p[lanning applications
Are 8125s processed locally or batched at another facility? / T / 14 /

Control center

NASS code / T / 15
Transportation links with other facilities by CIN / T / 16 / Maybe should just link to NASS
Transfer hub? / T / 17 / Y/N