Method and apparatus for processing mail to obtain image data of contents

• US 20050103687A1
• Filed: 08/31/2004
• Published: 05/19/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Opex Corporation
• Original Assignee: Opex Corporation
• Inventors: Hayduchok, George L., DeWitt, Robert R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,916,892 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 209/3
• CPC Class Codes: B07C 3/00 Sorting according to destination collating the pages of a book B42C1/00
• CPC Class Codes: B07C 3/06 Linear sorting machines in which articles are removed from a stream at selected points
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/987 with the intervention of an operator

Abstract

A method and apparatus for processing mail is provided. Mail is placed into an input bin having a conveyor that conveys the mail towards a feeder. The feeder serially feeds the envelopes by engaging the lead envelope in the stack of mail and displacing the lead envelope transverse the stack of mail. The mail is then cut on a side edge and the top edge to cut open each envelope. A transport conveys the cut envelopes to an extractor. The extractor opens the edge-severed mail and presents the contents of the envelopes to an operator who manually extracts the contents. The operator drops the extracted contents onto a conveyor that conveys the contents to an imaging station. The contents are automatically separated and imaged to obtain image data for the contents. The contents are then sorted into a plurality of output bins.

Claims

1. A method for processing transactional documents contained within envelopes, comprising the steps of:

extracting transactions from a plurality of envelopes, wherein each envelope contains a transaction comprising one or more documents;

scanning the documents of the transactions to obtain image data for the documents;

sorting the documents into a plurality of bins;

displaying document images on a view screen;

selecting a displayed document image;

displaying information regarding the location of the document corresponding to the selected document image;

manually retrieving the document corresponding to the selected document image after the information is displayed;

re-scanning the retrieved document to obtain a second set of image data of the retrieved document.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of selecting a displayed document image comprises the step of touching the displayed document image on the view screen.

3. The method of claim 2 comprising the step of manually replacing the retrieved document into the location from which it was retrieved.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of displaying document images comprises the step of grouping the document images according to transaction and separating the displayed documents of one transaction from the displayed documents of the next transaction.

5. The method of claim 2 comprising the step of changing the view of the display so that the display groups the document images according to the order of the documents in the bin in which the selected displayed document image is located.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of re-scanning comprises the steps of dropping the retrieved document onto a generally horizontal conveyor and conveying the retrieved document along the conveyor to an imaging station.

7. A method for processing a plurality of transactions, wherein each transaction comprises one or more documents, comprising the steps of:

scanning documents of the transactions to obtain image data for the documents;

sorting the documents into a plurality of bins; and

displaying the document images on a view screen so that images of documents in each transaction are grouped together on the view screen according to transaction and are separated from images of documents from other transactions.

8. The method of claim 7 comprising the step of extracting the transactions from a plurality of envelopes.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the step of displaying is performed during the step of scanning.

10. The method of claim 7 comprising the steps of selecting a displayed document image and displaying information regarding the location of the document corresponding to the selected document image.

11. The method of claim 7 comprising the step of changing the view of the display so that the display groups the document images according to the order of the documents in the bin in which the selected displayed document image is located.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the step of selecting a displayed document image comprises the step of touching the displayed document image on the view screen.

13. A method for processing transactional documents contained within envelopes, comprising the steps of:

scanning documents of transactions to obtain image data for the documents;

selectively displaying the document images on a view screen in one of a plurality of view configurations, including;

a transaction view in which images of documents in each transaction are grouped together in the display according to transaction and are separated from images of documents from other transactions;

a sequence view in which images of the scanned documents are displayed in order of the sequence in which the images were scanned; and

a bin view in which the images of the scanned documents are displayed in order of the sequence of the documents in a bin.

14. The method of claim 13 comprising the step of extracting the transactional documents from a plurality of envelopes.

15. The method of claim 13 comprising the step of sorting the documents into a plurality of bins.

16. The method of claim 13 comprising the step of changing from one of the transactional view, the sequence view and the bin view to a different one of the transactional view, the sequence view and the bin view.

17. The method of claim 13 comprising the step of selecting a displayed document image while the images are displayed in transactional view, and changing the view to bin view.

18. The method of claim 17 comprising the step of manually retrieving the document corresponding to the selected document image.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the step of selecting a displayed document image comprises the step of touching the displayed document image on the view screen.

20. The method of claim 13 wherein the step of displaying is performed during the step of scanning.

21. The method of claim 13 comprising the steps of selecting a displayed document image and displaying information regarding the location of the document corresponding to the selected document image.

22. The method of claim 21 comprising the step of changing the view of the display so that the display groups the document images according to the order of the documents in the bin in which the selected displayed document image is located.

23. An apparatus for processing transactional documents, wherein each transaction comprises one or more documents, comprising the steps of:

a scanner operable to scan the documents of the transactions to obtain image data for the documents;

a sorter operable to sort the documents into a plurality of bins;

a display operable to display document images;

an operator interface operable to allow an operator to select a document image displayed on the display;

an image controller operable to display information on the display regarding the location of the document corresponding to the selected document image, wherein the image controller is operable to replace the selected document image data with newly scanned image data for the selected document after the document is retrieved from one of the bins.

24. An apparatus for processing a plurality of transactions, wherein each transaction comprises one or more documents, comprising the steps of:

a scanner operable to scan documents of the transactions to obtain image data for the documents;

a sorter operable to the documents into a plurality of bins; and

a display operable to display images of the scanned documents;

an image controller operable to control the display of the images of the scanned documents on the display so that images of documents in each transaction are grouped together on the display according to transaction and are separated from images of documents from other transactions.