DATAMATX Total Quality Management (DXTQM) Goes Beyond USPS Standards

15 Dec DATAMATX Total Quality Management (DXTQM) Goes Beyond USPS Standards

As a high-volume mailer, for decades DATAMATX has always met the prevailing quality standards set by the US Postal Service for all classes of mail. Over the years, and with technological advances, USPS has raised its standards as it has added features like intelligent bar codes (IMb). The use of IMb led to USPS’s creating Full-Service Certification, which requires mailers to put in place a formal quality management program as well as meeting the new mail quality metrics and thresholds. Currently, the latest step up in USPS standards is Platinum Full-Service Certification, which indicates that a mailer has met all previous standards, plus has passed an internal quality assurance audit as well as an external quality assurance audit by a USPS quality auditor. We’re proud to say that DATAMATX is the first mailer in the country to earn the rigorous USPS Platinum Full-Service Certification.

We are proud of that achievement, of course. However, our primary focus is on satisfying customer expectations with more. In order to offer you the most error-free service possible and to assure that you can take advantage of any available postal discounts, we’ve developed yet another standard that we call DXTQM, DATAMATX Total Quality Management. This covers not only the purely mechanical considerations like the proper use of barcodes, but it also includes inspection of  all customer files as we download them, process and print them, and get them out the door.

To ensure the best quality, we’ve broken down our overall production process into a series of steps, each with procedures designed to uniquely identify, monitor and track customer files and to catch any duplicates or other errors. These steps include:

File Transmission Quality Control: We inspect files as they come in from the customer’s FTP for completeness and other possible errors. Files are then assigned unique job numbers for further tracking, and customers are notified of any issues.

Data Processing Quality Control: Here is where much of the pre-print work is done, such as grouping items by document type, postage rate, insertion requirements, and more. The files are checked at several points throughout this workflow to ensure their integrity.

Printing Quality Control: All operators are required to closely inspect the first printed sheet for quality, then randomly pull others to check for consistency throughout the run.

Mail Processing Quality Control: At this stage, a close-to-final check is performed by the Mail QC clerk, who inspects for non-conformities and compares the job to samples.

Inserting Quality Control: Operators are required to verify that the attached sample envelopes and inserts are correct, and that the information matches work order instructions.

Sorting Department Quality Control:  We implement one more final check to ensure that the job has been done accurately per instructions, contains the proper postage, and is ready for shipment.

These are just brief summaries of the tasks performed at every stage of production, but we share them to provide you with an idea of the care we take to assure that every job is done accurately and according to customer instructions. While it is critical for us to know and understand USPS requirements, as we see it, meeting and exceeding your expectations is – an always will be – our top priority.