syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) (02/20/91)
Ron Heiby <heiby@mcdchg.chg.mcd.mot.com> writes: > 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: > The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, > that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that > window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a > pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. The reason is very simple, its to make sure you remember to include the payment coupon. Having the make the address show through the window makes it much more likely that the customer will include the payment coupon. Our local power company and the water company go one better, the window only is big enough to show the name of the company, the address and bar code are pre-printed. Again, its just to make sure that the proper page is returned and that a page is returned. Otherwise too many people just send in a check and no 'bill payment page'. Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235
SKASS@drew.bitnet (02/20/91)
In TELECOM Digest #136, Ron Heiby <heiby@mcdchg.chg.mcd.mot.com> writes: > The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, > that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that > window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a > pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > The envelope already has the city/state/zip+4. In fact, the zip+4 is > BAR CODED on the envelope! [...] It may give you a pain to put the contents into the envelope in a particular way, but it aids the Telco's automation. If the check is always behind the bill and the bill is right side up, a machine can open the letter, separate the check from the bill, pull up the customer record and present an employee with the check. The employee simply types the amount of the check into a terminal and all the rest is taken care of automatically. I don't know for a fact that this is the reason, but it's the only one I can come up with that makes sense. Steve Kass/ Math&CS Dept/ Drew U/ Madison NJ 07940 2015141187/ skass@drew.edu
lang@panews (02/21/91)
> [Moderator's Note: Actually in the case of Illinois Bell, ... Anything > saying 60669 sorts to the back of a large van which delivers a couple > hundred thousand payment envelopes to telco daily ... Like you, I've > always wondered why the big fuss about making the coupon stand the > right way in the envelope, etc. PAT] Consider what happens at the other end, when those couple hundred thousand envelopes arrive at the processing center each day. Each one has to be opened, and the remittance sheet handled both by a human (to enter the amount received) and (I presume, based on the machine-readable digits on the sheet) by a machine to record the payment. The person handling the remittance has to take the sheet out of the envelope, read it, and probably insert it in the correct orientation into some processing machine. Consider it from an efficiency engineer's point of view and you'll see that adding the step of flipping the sheet around to the correct orientation to read it and send it through the processing machine could cost, say, two seconds. Even if only 30% of the envelopes came in with the sheets in an "incorrect" orientation, Pat's estimate of 200,000 envelopes per day yields 60,000 envelopes requiring special handling to reorient the remittance document. Assuming the flow of envelopes is constant six days a week, two second for each of those 60,000 envelopes comes to 16.66 hours per day, or 5197.92 hours per year. Even allowing for a fifty-hour work week, that still comes out to two extra full-time employees. While not a large expense compared to the outrageous profit margins of the operating companies, two full-time employees has *got* to cost more than the difference between standard and window envelopes. So, from a manager's point of view, the choice makes sense. Be seeing you... Lang
tro@uunet.uu.net (Tom Olin) (02/21/91)
In TELECOM Digest #136, Ron Heiby <heiby@mcdchg.chg.mcd.mot.com> writes: > The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, > that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that > window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a > pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. According to an information insert in one of my New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) bills a few months back, that is exactly the reason they use window envelopes. They speed processing at the office. Tom Olin uunet!adiron!tro (315) 738-0600 Ext 638 PAR Technology Corporation * 220 Seneca Turnpike * New Hartford NY 13413-1191
rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) (02/22/91)
In article <telecom11.136.5@eecs.nwu.edu>, Ron Heiby <heiby@mcdchg. chg.mcd.mot.com> writes: > Why do they put those darn windows there, rather than printing their > full address on the envelope? My first wife worked for a leasing company that had all kinds of automated billing stuff run by an IBM System/38. The combination of window/insert makes it necessary for you to put the bill in the envelope with a particular orientation. This makes it possible for a machine to remove the bill and your check, read your account number off of the bill, and pass the check on to another machine that reads your checking account number from the bank code in the lower left corner. The only manual intervention required is someone to read the amount of the check and key it in. And these days, even that isn't needed if you have an OCR reader that's good with handwriting (remember, it only needs to recognize digits). What's that got to do with telecom? Next time you have trouble with your phone bill and need to get a human in the loop, send the bill and your check in your own envelope. A warm-blooded human will have to deal with it.
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (02/22/91)
This is having increasingly little to do with telephones, but it's a fun tangent, so what the heck? Besides, evaluating the cost of running a utility has always been fair telecom digest fodder, hasn't it? Let's start with some assumptions by lang@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com, namely that it takes two seconds to re-orient a mis-oriented piece of paper and that you have to do it with 30% of the envelopes you get. Do these assumptions justify Lang's statement that: > While not a large expense compared to the outrageous profit margins of > the operating companies, two full-time employees has *got* to cost > more than the difference between standard and window envelopes. Today's {NY Times} classified section has three ads for data entry clerks; two list salaries (one $7/hr the other $17k/year). At about 1900 hours per work year, $7/hr is 13.3k/yr, but my guess is that unionized telco employess make near the high end of the scale, so I'll take the $17k/yr as a reasonable figure. That's about $9/hr, which turns into costing the employer about $12/hr with benefits, or .33 cents/second. My King Printing and Stationary catalog has 3-3/8" x 6-1/2" envelopes as $11.19/500 for plain and $14.49/500 for windows, in 10-box lots. That's 2.24 and 2.90 cents per, respectively. Add 10% for inflation (it's a 1989 catalog) and you get 2.46 and 3.19, or an extra 0.73 cents for windows. I'll take a wild guess and say telco buys custom printed ones in billion lots for the same price I can buy stock ones in 5000 lots. To process ten envelopes, the clerk will, on average, have to re-orient three pieces of paper, at an added cost of six seconds, or two cents. To save those six seconds by using window envelopes, telco would have spent an extra 7.3 cents, putting them 5.3 cents in the hole on the deal. If the basic assumptions are true, then lang's claim is false; the people are cheaper than the envelopes. Of course, my estimate of the clerk's wages could be off by a lot, and maybe telco can buy envelopes a lot cheaper than I thought, but both would have to be wrong by factors of two (in opposite directons) to make it break even. Maybe you lose more than two seconds per re-orientation? Well, just to make things more interesting, I asked the controller here what he pays for both kinds of envelopes (he found researching this to be a nice diversion from doing our corporate taxes). To my surprise he said it doesn't cost them anything different for the two kinds. I find that hard to believe, but would be remiss if I didn't report the datum. Another tidbit is that while NYTel uses windows, Brooklyn Union Gas doesn't. Go figure. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
djdaneh@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) (02/22/91)
In article <telecom11.140.4@eecs.nwu.edu> SKASS@drew.bitnet writes: > It may give you a pain to put the contents into the envelope in a > particular way, but it aids the Telco's automation. Speaking as a consumer (rather than a telco employee, which I also am), why should I *give* a frog about aiding the Telco's automation? If it saves the vendor (in this case, a Telco) labor at cost of convenience to the Customer, it's bad marketing -- period. The Roach
scott@huntsai.boeing.com (02/26/91)
djdaneh@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes: > In article <telecom11.140.4@eecs.nwu.edu> SKASS@drew.bitnet writes: >> It may give you a pain to put the contents into the envelope in a >> particular way, but it aids the Telco's automation. > Speaking as a consumer (rather than a telco employee, which I also > am), why should I *give* a frog about aiding the Telco's automation? Well, assuming that the Telco's charges to you are relative to their costs (probably a big assumption), if they can lower costs through automation, then they are also lowering your bill. If you go along with their automation efforts you help lower your bill. Scott Hinckley Internet:scott@huntsai.boeing.com |UUCP:.!uunet!uw-beaver!bcsaic!huntsai!scot DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions, they do not represent the opinions or feelings of Boeing or its management.