Optimised Mail Preparation (OMP) and Walsall Merging Trial

No. 114/15
Ref: 535 211.10 435
Date: 20th February 2015

To: Branches with POSTAL Members

Dear Colleague,

Optimised Mail Preparation (OMP) and Walsall Merging Trial
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Branches and Representatives will be aware of discussions with Royal Mail that have been ongoing for some months now on the proposed Optimised Mail Preparation (OMP) initiative. In broad terms Royal Mail’s original proposal was based around a change to the indoor preparation method in delivery, which they believe could significantly reduce the time required for indoor workload. To enable this change would require an alteration to the way in which mail is currently presented to Delivery Offices which would involve each office receiving all sequenced mail in a single wave.

The business proposed to commence a trial of the new indoor merging process at Walsall DO, as the office already receives all sequenced mail in a single wave, with an expansion to other offices in the NWMMC (Wolverhampton MC) catchment area on a phased basis. In addition during the course of the discussions the business also introduced a further proposal to include a form of outdoor merging into the trial activity.

The consequence of this change has a potential impact across the entire pipeline and as such it was imperative that the proposals were dealt with in the round. Equally it has been crucial to ensure that any trial activity is carried out on the basis of a genuine proof of concept rather than Royal Mail’s preference for a pilot as a precursor to automatic national roll out.

The Joint Statement on Growth, Efficiency and Incentives, contained the following words:

As part of this the Optimised Mail Preparation project will now be fully integrated into the wider pipeline/work plan review. Royal Mail confirms this particular project is only at the concept stage and CWU will be fully involved in its development, commencing with detailed modelling of the concept in selected units to help understand the potential impact on the entire mails pipeline/workplan. A Terms of Reference to trial this will be agreed separately and any output from the trial will be considered in conjunction with the output of the ongoing wider review. This will include consideration of whether such initiatives can support the overall strategy for growth.
As a result the Postal Executive agreed that the respective postal departments affected would nominate PEC members to undertake the work via the OMP National Working Group which was subsequently established.

The Postal Executive has been updated on the background and developments throughout the discussions to finalise an agreed TOR, both verbally and through PE Doc 220/14. Following a further series of meetings, discussions concluded on Wednesday 11th February where a Negotiators’ agreement on a Terms of Reference covering all aspects of the project was reached and subsequently placed before the Postal Executive for endorsement.

The Terms of Reference defines three key strands of activity designed to ensure that all aspects of the trial are progressed with equal status and that any future deliberations or decisions covering the potential impacts of the trial are arrived at from the most informed position. The three key strands of activity will run in parallel with each other.

Pipeline Modelling

The CWU negotiators have continually made the point to Royal Mail that the initial impact modelling based on Wolverhampton Mail Centre could not be accepted as indicative of the impact across the entire Mail Centre Network. Clearly our view has been that moving to a single processing wave in Mail Centres could produce varying impacts depending on issues such as geography, position in the mails pipeline, catchment area and environment, and as a consequence the Union has insisted that there could not be any agreement to change processing arrangements, even on a trial basis until such time as we fully understood the potential impact of the proposed change across the entire pipeline. It has therefore been agreed that 8 Mail Centres will be modelled to enable this understanding to be achieved. The sites were nominated by the CWU and were selected to ensure that all potential areas of concerns are fully addressed. The sites will be modelled in priority order in line with the defined list of outputs and measures listed in Annex A, covering the potential impact in Processing, Engineering, Distribution and Delivery operations. The aspiration is to complete the work by the end of April 2015 with an interim report being produced at the end of March 2015.

The CWU will be fully involved in the modelling exercise and details of this are being finalised.

Indoor Merging

In relation to the Indoor Merging process, initially ten delivery rounds will trial the process, from w/c 2nd March. Industrial Engineers will measure current performance to ascertain the base data against which the Indoor Merging process can be measured both in terms of the trial objectives and the elements contained within Annex B.

Regular periodic reviews will be put in place so that an informed decision can be made on whether the trial can be extended to more delivery rounds within Walsall DO on a phased basis with the aim of ultimately including the whole Office, so that a full analysis of the Indoor Merging can be undertaken. This will however be subject to agreement by the National Parties.

Trial activity will be monitored by a local Joint Working Group including local and Area CWU Representatives, with additional support on Health and Safety and Industrial Engineers. The group will provide weekly reports to the national JWG and activity will be overseen by the Delivery Director and a Divisional Representative.

Outdoor Merging

The concept of Outdoor Merging did not form part of the original proposal and was introduced late into the discussions. Royal Mail claims that Outdoor Merging is utilised in various forms across many Postal operators and have indicated that they are keen to assess any potential benefits against the current preparation method and the indoor merging option. The Union has raised serious concerns over both the rationale and the proposed methodology. As such both parties have accepted that we are not in a position to progress outdoor merging at present and have agreed to undertake further work which will be incorporated into a Delivery Design document that will detail the use of new equipment, the impact on all existing delivery methods, all safety standards, safe systems of work and standard operating procedures.

Once this has been produced the findings will be reported back to the respective National Parties by the end of April 2015 at which time discussions with take place regarding next steps.

As part of the overall review of the trial and in particular the three key strands of work it has been made clear that there will be regular reports back to the respective National parties and also the Parallel Ops Executive. Any decision to incorporate an Outdoor Merging Process into the trial or extending to further Delivery Offices will be subject to further national discussions and subsequent agreement by the Postal Executive.

Following the Postal Executive’s endorsement of the TOR, the processes contained within the document are being communicated directly to the Local JWG and the relevant Representatives who will be assisting with the parallel activity ensuring that we have full control and that the TOR have been fully understood.

Branches and Representative need to be fully aware of the fact that even though we have concluded talks on the TOR there is still a huge amount of work to be undertaken and in reality this is only the beginning of the process.

The discussions have been extremely difficult however the Terms of Reference provide all the necessary safeguards to ensure that this initiative is progressed in an informed, measured and controlled manner. It should be noted that the Union has successfully pulled the business back from a position where they were gearing up for national deployment to a limited controlled trial, which will give us the ability to fully assess the proposals, prove or disprove the concept and ensure that any future decisions relating to the initiative are subject to full national discussion and agreement.

Any enquiries should be directed to the relevant National Officer’s Department,
Quoting reference 535 for Bob Gibson’s Office, Email address: hnutley@cwu.org
Quoting reference 211.10 for Terry Pullinger’s Office, Email address dwyatt@cwu.org
Quoting reference 435 for Ray Ellis’s Office, Email address djeffery@cwu.org

Yours sincerely
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Bob Gibson Terry Pullinger Ray Ellis
CWU Assistant Secretary CWU Assistant Secretary CWU Assistant Secretary