Operations for product processing

• US 20060180519A1
• Filed: 12/22/2004
• Published: 08/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Inventors: Carey, Patrick J., Wisniewski, Michael A., Larson, Dale J., Hanson, Bruce H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,507,930 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 209/584
• CPC Class Codes: B07C 3/00 Sorting according to destination collating the pages of a book B42C1/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 209/90 Sorting flat-type mail

Abstract

An operational process for product distribution includes grouping product into groups when the product is in a first sort level and sorting the groups of product, in a first pass operation, to a second level sort. The method further includes sequencing the second level sort product including late arriving product, in a second pass operation, into a sequence of product. A machine readable code can also be used to implement the functionality of the operational process.

Claims

1. An operational process for product distribution, comprising:

grouping product with one or more common attributes into a first group;

sorting the product of the first group to a first level sort;

injecting ungrouped product into the first group; and

sequencing the sorted product and any of the ungrouped product having the one or more common attributes as the sorted product.

2. The operational process of claim 1, wherein the sorting step is performed in a first operation and the sequencing step is performed in a second operation.

3. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising cascading any ungrouped product devoid of the one or more common attributes to another sorting and sequencing operation.

4. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising making a determination as to whether the product is in bundles or in the first sort level prior to the grouping step.

5. The operational process of claim 4, further comprising bypassing the grouping step and directly proceeding to the sorting step when the product is in a group sort order.

6. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising bypassing the sorting step and directly sequencing saturation product in the sequencing step.

7. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising grouping a batch of the ungrouped product arriving after the sequencing step and manually sorting the batch.

8. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising providing the sequenced product to dispatch.

9. The operational process of claim 1, wherein:

the grouping step further includes grouping the product into a second group, where the product in the second group have a common product attribute; and

the sequencing step includes sequencing the first group of product and the second group of product in separate stages.

10. The operational process of claim 9, wherein the sequencing step further comprises:

sequencing the ungrouped product and the first group of product all having the one or more common attributes in a first stage of the separate stages;

cascading remaining ungrouped product devoid of the one or more common attributes to a second stage of the separate stages; and

sequencing (i) the remaining ungroup product, (ii) ungrouped product arriving after the first stage and (iii) product in the second group, all having a common attribute, in the second stage.

11. The operational process of claim 10, further comprising:

bypassing the first stage and cascading the product of the second group to the second stage for sequencing; and

cascading the ungrouped product arriving after the first stage to either the second stage or a residual stage for sorting operations depending on an associated group.

12. The operational process of claim 1, wherein:

the grouping step further includes grouping the product into a second group and a third group based on a common product attribute; and

the sequencing step includes;

(i) sequencing the first group of product and the ungrouped product associated with the first group in a first sequencing operation,

cascading the product in the second group and the ungrouped product associated with the second group to a second sequencing operation, and

cascading the product in the third group and the ungrouped product associated with the third group to a third sequencing operation;

(ii) sequencing the second group of product and the ungrouped product associated with the second group in the second sequencing operation,

cascading the ungrouped product associated with the third group, arriving during the sequencing step (ii), to the third sequencing operation, and

cascading the ungrouped product associated with the first group, arriving during the sequencing step (ii), to a residual sort operation; and

(iii) sequencing the third group of product and the ungrouped product associated with the third group in the third sequencing operation, and

cascading the ungrouped product associated with the first group and the second group arriving during the sequencing step (iii) to the residual sort operation.

13. The operational process of claim 12, wherein the sequenced product for the first group, the second group and the third group is discharged to a dispatch and the cascading steps of (ii) are separate steps for the product and the ungrouped product.

14. The operational process of claim 12, wherein:

the sequencing step (i) is provided during a first time period;

the sequencing step (ii) is provided during a second time period; and

the sequencing step (iii) is provided during a third time period.

15. The operational process of claim 9, wherein the separate stages are separate, concurrent stages.

16. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising preparing the product during the grouping, sorting and sequencing steps.

17. The operational process of claim 16, wherein the preparing step includes a determination of a sort level of the product and directing the product, depending on the determined sort level, to one of:

(i) operations of the grouping step;

(ii) a manual incoming sort operation for sorting the product; and

(iii) operations of the sorting step.

18. The operational process of claim 1, wherein a portion of the sorting step and sequencing step overlap.

19. The operational process of claim 1, wherein some product is held in a buffer stage prior to the sequencing step.

20. The operational process of claim 1, wherein the product is flat mail pieces.

21. The operational process of claim 1, further comprising calculating an amount of product that can be sequenced in a given time period, based on a known value of saturation product, an estimated historical value of the product, and machine capacity for a first pass operation of the sorting step and a second pass operation of the sequencing step.

22. An operational process for product distribution, comprising:

grouping product into discrete groups based on common product attributes;

sorting each product of the discrete groups of product in separate sorting processes to provide a finer granularity of sort level than in the grouping step; and

cascading late arriving product, associated with a group yet to be sorted, to another sorting process of the separate sorting processes for sorting or sequencing with the product of the associated group.

23. The operational process of claim 22, wherein the group yet to be sorted bypasses a first sort operation and is inducted directly into a second sorting operation, of a same level.

24. The operational process of claim 22, further comprising cascading the late arriving product to a residual sort operation, when product of an associated group has already been sequenced or sorted in the sorting step.

25. The operational process of claim 22, further comprising making a determination as to whether the product is (i) in bundles, (ii) in a first sort level or (iii) in a second, finer sort level prior to the grouping step.

26. The operational process of claim 25, further comprising preparing the bundles prior to the sorting step, wherein the preparing step includes directing the product, based on a determination of a sort level, to one of:

(i) a first pass operation for grouping the product;

(ii) a manual incoming sort operation for sorting the product; and

(iii) a second pass operation for sorting the product.

27. The operational process of claim 22, further comprising bypassing the grouping step for saturation mail.

28. The operational process of claim 22, wherein:

the grouping step includes grouping the product into at least two separate groups; and

the sorting step includes sequencing each of the at least two separate groups of product in separate, concurrent stages, respectively.

29. The operational process of claim 22, wherein:

the grouping step includes grouping the product into at least a first group, a second group and a third group; and

the sorting step includes;

sequencing the first group of product in a first sorting operation and cascading product for the second group to a second sorting operation and the third group to a third sorting operation;

sequencing the second group of product in the second sorting operation and cascading product for the third group to the third sorting operation and late arriving product of the first group to a residual sort operation; and

sequencing the third group of product in the third sorting operation and cascading product for late arriving product of the first and second group to the residual sort operation.

30. The operational process of claim 29, wherein:

the sequencing of the first group is provided during a first time period;

the sequencing of the second group of product is provided during a second time period; and

the sequencing of the third group of product is provided during a third time period.

31. The operational process of claim 22, wherein a portion of the sorting step and sequencing step overlap.

32. The operational process of claim 22, wherein product is held in a buffer stage prior to the sorting step.

33. The operational process of claim 22, wherein the product is flat mail pieces.

34. The operational process of claim 22, further comprising calculating an amount of product that can be sorted into sequence in a given day, using a known value of saturation product, an estimated historical value of the product, and machine capacity for a given time period for the sorting step.

35. The operational process of claim 22, wherein the finer granularity of sort level is a sequencing sort level of the product.

36. The operational process of claim 22, wherein the common product attributes are sort level information.

37. An operational process to determine maximum efficiency of sorting operations with different product types, comprising:

estimating an amount of a first type of product to be processed in a given time period based on historical data (H);

providing a known performance of a sorting machine during a requisite time period for sorting processes (P);

supplying a known value (V) of a second type of product; and

calculating an amount of a third product that can be processed based on the previous steps.

38. The operational process of claim 37, wherein the calculating step includes P-H-V.

39. The operational process of claim 37, wherein the calculating step ensures that all of the first type of product received is processed within a predetermined time period.

40. The operational process of claim 37, wherein:

the first type of product is first class mail;

the second type of product is saturation mail; and

the third type of mail is bulk mail.

41. A system for processing mail pieces simultaneously on at least two machines, each of the machines having bin partitions allocated for operations, comprising:

in a first machine,

processing simultaneously, in a first time period, in respective allocated partitions;

(i) incoming group and outgoing primary sorting operations;

(ii) outgoing primary sorting operations; and

(iii) outgoing carrier group holdout mail pieces;

processing simultaneously, in a second time period, a delivery point sequencing operation; and

processing simultaneously, in a third time period, a residual sorting operation for late arriving mail items which were not processed in the first or second time period; and

in a second machine,

processing simultaneously, in the first time period, outgoing Group Sort operations; and

processing simultaneously, in the second time period and the third time period, a delivery point sequencing operation.

42. The system of claim 41, wherein the first and second machine each have 360 bins, represented by four equally divided partitions 1 through 4, each having 90 bins.

43. The system of claim 41, wherein:

approximately eight bins are reserved for the incoming Group Sort operations;

approximately 148 to 262 bins are reserved for outgoing primary sorting operations;

any of the bins are reserved for the residual sorting operation for late arriving mail items;

approximately 352 to 360 bins are reserved for the delivery point sequencing operation.

44. The system of claim 41, wherein the first and second machine each have N bins, represented by four equally divided partitions.

45. The system of claim 41, wherein:

approximately N bins are reserved for the incoming Group Sort operations;

approximately N₁ bins are reserved for outgoing primary sorting operations;

any of the bins are reserved for the residual sorting operation for late arriving mail items;

approximately N₂ bins are reserved for the delivery point sequencing operation.

46. A machine readable medium containing code for an operational process to distribute product, comprising at least one module to provide function to:

grouping product with one or more common attributes into a first group;

sorting the product of the first group to a first level sort;

injecting ungrouped product into the first group; and

sequencing the sorted product and any of the ungrouped product having the one or more common attributes as the sorted product.

47. A machine readable medium containing code for an operational process to distribute product, comprising at least one module to provide function to:

group product into discrete groups based on common product attributes;

sort each product of the discrete groups of product in separate sorting processes to provide a finer granularity of sort level than in the grouping step; and

cascade late arriving product, associated with a group yet to be sorted, to another sorting process of the separate sorting processes for sorting or sequencing with the product of the associated group.