Crawford Technologies designs and develops powerful print-stream and document transformation and data enhancement solutions.Crawford Technologies designs and develops powerful print-stream and document transformation and data enhancement solutions.
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Who We Are
Founded in 1995, Crawford Technologies, Inc. (CrawfordTech) is a leader in document manipulation and re-engineering solutions,including data mining of print streams, archiving and retrieval, print stream conversion, and workflow processing.

CrawfordTech has clients worldwide and offers its products through Direct, VAR, and OEM channels.

The wide range of robust and flexible CrawfordTech products allows companies to boost revenue, build efficiencies and bolster customer service.

Our committed and knowledgeable technical teams provide unparalleled development, design and support, and their flexible transform technology is recognized as the fastest, most flexible and most accurate available.

Customers around the globe rely on CrawfordTech to enable mission-critical document strategies that result in tactical savings and efficiencies as well as strategic improvements in revenue generation and customer service.

Crawford Technologies

CrawfordTech Enterprise Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMB)

Will you be ready for IMB in 2009?


What is the Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMB)?
The Intelligent Mail® barcode (previously known as the 4-State Customer barcode) is the next generation of USPS barcodes for sorting and tracking letters and flats. The IMB also expands a mailers' ability to track individual mail pieces and provides greater visibility into the mailstream both internally within an organizations production processes and externally after the mail piece has left the facility.

Moving to IMB
IMB implementation is far more than a simple one-to-one swap of IMB for PostNet. In addition to ZIP code routing information, IMB also carries information such as class of mail, special services requests, unique mailer ID, and unique tracking ID. This means that the IMB offers the opportunity to have each mail piece uniquely identified both before and during the mailing process. It also means other markings can be eliminated from the document and envelope, freeing up space and yielding a cleaner-looking final product. The two levels of service - IMB Basic Service and IMB Full Service - will both require changes in how you create and track your mail. To receive the highest postal discounts you must implement IMB Full Service - not a simple task.

Levels of IMB Implementation
IMB can be implemented as a series of four steps (see Figure 1), each step increasing the benefits to your organization. This approach allows you to start slowly with minimal impact to your current production processes and gradually add functionality and value to other departments using IMB's mail piece tracking capability, should you desire those benefits.

Levels of IMB Implementation

How to Put IMB on Paper
There are four places in the transaction document creation and mailing process to put IMBs on paper.
  • Document Composition
  • Document Re-Engineering post-composition
  • Electronic Commingling
  • External Sortation

Most organizations will not have the luxury of selecting only one of these four for all their transactional mail. Due to the diversity of lines of business applications, different software systems, legacy applications and time to market windows, frequently a different option to add IMBs will have to be chosen for your applications. You need to find a vendor who is flexible and can assist you in adding IMBs in all four possible process options.

What Else Can I Use IMB For?
IMB goes far beyond just a POSTNET replacement. Using IMB, you can track individual mail pieces both internally and after they leave your facility. This tracking capability can benefit your production processes in-house and can be further enhanced by accepting external updates (such as OneCode Confirm) to provide tracking and information about your mail pieces after they have left your facility.

Internal Production Processes
Tie into your internal product processes such as:

  • ADF
  • Mail Piece Reconciliation
  • Reprint

External Processes
Tie in to the USPS OneCode options to better track mail externally

  • Confirm
  • ACS

Enterprise Processes
Use mail piece tracking to enhance your other finance and marketing processes, including:

  • Lock box staffing projections
  • Cash flow projections
  • Statement tracking
  • Delivery confirmation of bills and notices
  • Customer support staffing
  • Message tracking, both at the individual piece and at the aggregate levels.

Crawford Technologies Can Help
CrawfordTech can assist you in a successful migration to IMB.
  • CrawfordTech Professional Services can assist you in designing and developing the necessary changes to your production process to generate and add IMBs.
  • Visit us at NPF in Booth #1208 and ask us about our Enterprise IMB solutions.
Contact CrawfordTech today at 1-866-679-0864 or sales@crawfordtech.com to learn how we can help you be ready for 2009, or visit us at NPF in booth #1208.

We look forward to helping you successfully implement IMB before the 2009 deadline.







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