As part of the Postal Service’s efforts to better use data and information and to improve customers’ experiences, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) in Order No. 4697 approved the replacement of the External First-Class Measurement System (EXFC) with an Internal Service Performance Measurement System (SPM). The EXFC will be retired on September 30, 2018 and starting on October 1, 2018 the Internal SPM will be the official system of record for service measurement and reporting.
Internal SPM, which has been running in parallel with EXFC since 2016, uses data collected from real-time scans of mailpieces at collection and delivery points and combines it with data from the live scans of billions of pieces of mail processed in the postal network. The USPS says this will benefit the internal operations of the USPS and will increase mail visibility to its customers.
USPS Vice President of Enterprise Analytics Isaac Cronkhite said, “Internal Service Performance Measurement allows the Postal Service to move from an outdated measurement method to one that is more robust and uses data that is more accurate, reliable and representative.”