Introduction to Quality Assurance

2. Introduction to Quality Assurance To give you reassurance that you are able to produce Mailmark™ barcodes which Royal Mail can read, and an eManifest which we can link to physical mail, Royal Mail offers a four stage quality assurance process • Initial barcode check (data string and encoding) • Single mailpiece check (design and layout) • eManifest upload (using a test environment) • Mail Processing and eManifest check

3. Barcode check To make sure that your Mailmark™ barcodes are correctly encoded. • You send us a pdf of the barcode/mail piece, with the accompanying data string, and we will check that the data string and encoding match.

4. Single mailpiece check We will look at you mailpiece to ensure that it meets design guidelines. We can look at both letters and large letters. We can also use this as a second opportunity to look at your barcode. • Send samples (one per format) to the Quality Assurance team, together with the data string held within the barcode(s) • Mailpiece is scanned • The Quality Assurance team will come back to you with the barcode test results and feedback on the mailpiece design

5. eManifest upload check A test environment is available to ensure that your eManifests can be created and uploaded • The Mailmark™ team will supply you with access credentials, test supply chain IDs and a list of suggested actions to test. • You can then upload test eManifests, and work through the checklist provided • A weekly report goes to the Mailmark™ team summarising your activity, progress against checklist and number of confirmed eManifests • Prior to moving on to the full mail processing check we recommend that you have successfully worked through the eManifest checklist

6. Mail Processing and eManifest Check As a final stage, we can cross-check an eManifest you provide us with against a matching sample of mail, and provide a report back to you on what we processed through a sorting machine. This will provide you with the assurance that you can produce a valid eManifest and associated mail, which we can track and report on.

7. Mail Processing and eManifest Check This check is currently only available for letters. You will be provided with a live Supply Chain ID by the MailmarkTM Customer Take-On team so that you can upload an eManifest in the live environment. To start the process you will need to produce 200 test letters carrying a Mailmark™. • These should be sent to the Quality Assurance team • On receipt of your test mail we will contact you to agree when the associated test eManifest should be uploaded • You will need to confirm back to the Quality Assurance team that the eManifest has been uploaded successfully, and supply the associated eManifest ID

8. Mail Processing and eManifest Check (continued) 4. We will run your sample mail through an IMP letter processing machine 5. On the next working day, we will download the report relating to the eManifest ID supplied by you. 6. We will arrange a suitable time to discuss the results with you in detail.

9. Quality Assurance Team contact details Email: mailmarkqa@royalmail.com Mailmark Quality Assurance Royal Mail Drake House Breakwater Road Plymstock PLYMOUTH PL9 7HW

10. Any questions?