Pulling Down Into DPS

What you are actually doing

The phrase “pulling down into DPS” sounds more complicated than the physical act. You case the mail you want cased. When you pull it down, instead of making a completely separate bundle, you place those pieces into the correct locations in the DPS sequence. DPS stays the spine of the route. The cased mail gets attached to it.

That is different from casing DPS. You are not taking every machine-sequenced letter out of the tray and putting it into the case. You are using the sequence you already have and deciding where a second touch will simplify the street.

Method A — Full merge

This is the version I am most likely to use when mail is reasonably light and I know the route well. The goal is one main delivery stream by the time I leave the office.

1. Case the raw letters, flats, and other pieces you want organized in the case.
2. Set the DPS where you can read the next address without fighting the tray.
3. Pull the next cased piece or address group.
4. Find that delivery point in DPS.
5. Insert the cased piece with the correct DPS address group without disturbing the sequence around it.
6. Continue through the route until the merged tray is complete.
7. Keep parcel cues, accountables, and anything that needs a separate action visible in their own system instead of burying every reminder inside the letters.

What that looks like in plain English

Suppose the next piece you pull from the case is for 412 Oak. The DPS has 408, 410, 412, 412, 414. You put the cased piece with the 412 group. Then you pull the next piece and do it again. You are walking the cased mail through the DPS sequence, not walking the DPS through the case.

The advantage is obvious once the merge works: on the street, your left hand is not constantly asking your right hand whether there is also a cased letter for this address. The answer is already in the stack.

Method B — Section merge

A full merge is not always worth it. On a route I do not know as well, a mixed route, or a day when the mail is heavier, I would rather organize by geography and let the route tell me when to bring the streams together.

Instead of pulling the entire case into DPS, pull one useful section: Street A, a subdivision, one CBU, an apartment group, or another natural block. Keep the route-long DPS intact. When you reach that section on the street, work the section bundle with the DPS for that section.

1. Case the mail normally.
2. Choose route boundaries you will actually recognize outside the office.
3. Pull one section into a clean bundle, tray position, or other obvious physical boundary.
4. Leave the DPS sequence intact.
5. At the beginning of the section, place the bundle where both streams are easy to work.
6. Deliver through that section, then reset for the next one.

Why I like sectioning on unfamiliar routes

An unfamiliar route is partly a memory problem. You are trying to hold street names, turns, box order, parcels, scanner prompts, businesses, dogs, and whatever mystery somebody described as “you'll see it” before handing you the keys. A section gives your brain a smaller job.

You do not need to remember the whole route. You need to know: I am in this subdivision now, and this is the mail that belongs to it. Finish the section. Reset. Move on.

The easiest way to ruin the full merge

• Trying to find every address in DPS when the volume is so heavy that the search itself becomes the day's hobby.
• Inserting pieces carelessly enough that one missed address shifts the mental sequence for the rest of the tray.
• Burying parcel markers or accountable reminders inside a stack you are going to thumb through quickly.
• Forcing a route-long merge when the vehicle has nowhere sensible to hold the finished product.
• Continuing to use the method because it worked yesterday even though today's volume changed the math.

The easiest way to ruin a section merge

• Making bundles with no geographic meaning.
• Labeling them with something you will not recognize on the road.
• Building so many tiny sections that you have merely invented another sorting system.
• Stacking Section 6 on top of Section 2 because it fit there and assuming Street You will remember why Office You did that.

A useful stop rule

If the merge is taking long enough that you are repeatedly thinking, “I could have just carried this separately,” believe the thought. The method did not fail morally. It just failed the math today.

The point is not to become a carrier who pulls into DPS. The point is to become a carrier who can look at the route, the mail, and the vehicle and choose a setup on purpose.