Our biggest Access customers continue to tell us that they are very concerned about the condition of the trays they are receiving from us so we are once again asking everyone across Operations to play your part in ensuring that trays are supplied in a safe and hygienic condition. We face the very real threat of financial sanctions if we can’t get this right as we are breaching our contract with our customers. Not only that, but at a time when covid infections are increasing rapidly throughout the country, our customers are raising serious safety concerns about the condition of trays, particularly when they find trays containing used PPE which, worryingly, is not uncommon. As I am sure you will all agree it is not acceptable for colleagues and customers to be put at risk from used PPE etc. being left in empty trays.
As well as PPE we have received recent photographic evidence of customers being given unhygienic, unsafe trays containing the following:
Rubbish including half eaten food and used coffee cups, sweet wrappers etc
- Human excrement
A leaking bottle of urine
Broken glass from a smashed bottle
Jagged pieces of broken tray
Blood stained tissues
Live mail (this Mail Integrity issue is very concerning, particularly at a time when our customers are focusing heavily on Quality)
We need your support to act now to ensure the correct operational processes are adhered to at source; these are the Presentation Standards as below:
Mail Centres - Trays before Handover to DSA carriers should be checked and correctly stacked before 141 swaps take place. If they are not upside down with labels removed, this must be done in the MC as per the Quality gate before handover. Note any non-compliant DOs from the labels in the trays and feed this back to aid compliance.
Mail Centres - Surplus trays after 141 Swaps must also be stacked upside down before repatriating to an RDC to ensure they are ready and fit for customer use. Not all trailers are unloaded in an RDC and may go direct to high volume customer in the condition they were loaded in.
Deliveries - Trays are to be tipped, labels removed, turned individually upside down and stored upside down (48 per York) after Mail is tipped at IPS and at the RM2000 frames. We estimate that by inverting trays individually before stacking them, circa 90% of complaints would be eliminated.
Deliveries - DOMs and ADOMs to ensure trays presented to distribution for repatriation in the designated areas maintain this compliance, if they are NOT they should not be repatriated
Local Distribution - Repatriate only compliant trays in the correct format (Upside down with labels removed) back to the MC. This will ensure the MC receives correctly stacked and clean trays for handover to the access carriers and customers
You will see from the photographs taken by our customers that this is a shocking and totally unacceptable situation that cannot be allowed to continue. Please take action now to resolve this serious problem as there is a risk of financial sanctions, reputational damage, customer complaints about Quality and Mail Integrity and the very real possibility that a colleague or customer could suffer physical harm.
