Campus mail can move more efficiently — with a little helpful cooperation from customers

In light of impending budget cuts, the UW–Madison Physical Plant is asking the campus community to help make the campus mail delivery system as efficient as possible to ensure the shortest delivery times.

Five employees manually process up to 10,000 pieces of campus mail daily, and make 181 stops at 128 buildings. Kris Ackerbauer, Physical Plant assistant director, says customers can do a few simple things to help staff move the mail more quickly.

“The single most important fact our customers should know is that campus mail is sorted by the building name, so putting the name of the destination building first on the envelope will help our mail handlers save precious seconds,” says Ackerbauer.

Typed labels are the preferred method of addressing campus mail, but if that is not an option, Ackerbauer asks customers to print or write legibly.

“That may seem like a no-brainer,” he says, “but trying to read poorly handwritten addresses slows things down considerably.”

Here are other ways to help:

• Avoid using acronyms and abbreviations when addressing an envelope.
• Include a return address on your correspondence inside the campus mail envelope.
• Have all of your outgoing mail facing up and in an orderly fashion.
• Band bulk mailings together to save sorting time. (Bulk mail is defined as any mailing consisting of two or more pieces that are of the same matter going to the same building.)
• If you move to a different building location, provide an accurate forwarding address to your mailroom staff.
• Keep campus mail staff informed about how your department receives its mail and any building location changes that occur. There are a number of campus-affiliated offices that have moved off campus. Their mail might be routed through one of the regular building stops or delivered by the U.S Postal Service.
• If you receive U.S. mail mistakenly delivered to your building mailroom by the U.S. Postal Service, do not return it to campus mail. Send it back to the U.S. Postal Service for proper routing.

For a schedule of campus mail delivery stops, visit http://www.fpm.wisc.edu/pp/operations.htm.

Update: June, 2014:

If you have questions about Campus Mail please contact:
 
Dave Grueneberg, 265-5293, DGrueneberg@fpm.wisc.edu or
Brad Schenkel, 262-1574,  BSchenkel@fpm.wisc.edu