Effective July 31, 2004, the Postal Service will raise the barcode readability threshold to 90 percent for automation rate mailings of flat-sized pieces. This change will make the barcode readability threshold for mailings of flat-sized pieces consistent with mailings of letters. Mailings that result in a barcode readability score from 80 to 89 percent will have postage recalculated at the non-automation rates based on the actual percentage of error. Mailings that fall below 80 percent will not be eligible for automation rate discounts.

In 2001, the Postal Service implemented the Mail Evaluation Readability Lookup INstrument (MERLIN) as a new process for verification of discount rate mailings. The deployment of MERLIN was completed in November 2003. Since the beginning of implementation, a tolerance of 80 percent has been maintained for barcode readability of automation rate flat-size mailings. Mailings that fell below the 80 percent tolerance were not eligible for the automation rates. The tolerance for letter mailings has been 90 percent.

Since mailings were first verified on MERLIN, mailers have greatly improved the quality of barcodes printed on flats. Nationwide, only a small percentage of mailings evaluated by MERLIN receive readability scores between 80 and 90 percent. Therefore, the Postal Service believes it is time to raise the threshold for the quality of barcodes printed on flat-sized pieces to the same level as for barcodes printed on letters.

The Postal Service appreciates the continued cooperation of the mailing community in supporting our quality improvement efforts.