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Parcel processing system and method

  • US 10,346,788 B2
  • Filed: 05/12/2015
  • Issued: 07/09/2019
  • Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2015
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A system for controllable physical sorting of a plurality of parcels to be shipped and which adaptively accommodates different encoding formats for machine-readable indicia via mapping, the parcels including a plurality of scanable parcel identifiers thereon, the system comprising:

  • a scanner configured to a scan machine-readable indicia on the parcels, wherein the machine-readable indicia comprise data that encodes destination zip codes and the parcel identifiers for the parcels;

    a database in which a plurality of customer profile data structures are stored, each customer profile data structure being associated with a customer, and each of a plurality of the customer profile data structures comprising data indicative of a plurality of billing rules and preferences for its associated customer, the database further comprising a plurality of mapping data structures that identify how parcel identifiers and destination zip codes are encoded in a plurality of different encoding formats for the machine-readable indicia; and

    a computer processor in cooperation with the scanner and the database, the computer processor configured to;

    receive scanned data from the scanner that represents the encoded parcel identifiers and destination zip codes from the machine-readable indicia;

    decode the encoded parcel identifiers and destination zip codes in the scanned data based on the mapping data structures;

    for each decoded parcel identifier, (1) determine a destination for the parcel corresponding to that parcel identifier based on the decoded destination zip code for the parcel associated with that parcel identifier, (2) determine a delivery time frame for shipping the parcel corresponding to that parcel identifier, (3) determine a customer associated with the parcel corresponding to that parcel identifier, (4) retrieve from the database the customer profile data structure associated with the determined customer, (5) select a shipping service level from the retrieved customer profile data structure based on a plurality of rules applied to the determined destination and the determined delivery time frame, the rules configured to identify for selection a shipping service level that is estimated to deliver the parcel to the destination within the delivery time frame at the lowest monetary cost, (6) receive parcel size data indicative of a size of the parcel, (7) calculate a cost to ship the parcel to the destination based on the determined shipping service level and the received parcel size data, (8) generate a bill for the determined customer that includes the calculated cost to ship the parcel, and (9) determine one of a plurality of shipping containers each parcel is to be sorted into; and

    a conveyer system configured to move the parcels to any of a plurality of shipping containers, the conveyer system including at least one mechanical sorter under control of the computer processor to selectively sort the parcels for movement into selected ones of the shipping containers based on the determined shipping container; and

    wherein the computer processor is further configured to provide control instructions for the mechanical sorter based on a drop point determined by the determined shipping service level and the determined destination for each parcel, the control instructions configured to define which shipping container each parcel is to be sorted into.

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