MAILPIECE REJECT PROCESSING OF FIRST PASS DPS REJECTS
First Claim
1. A method for processing a mailpiece, comprising:
- receiving a mailpiece that was rejected from an automated sorting process during a first pass DPS—
delivery point sequence—
sort because the mailpiece barcode is not automatically resolvable;
transferring the reject mailpiece to a labeling machine having an on-board OCR system;
in the OCR system of the labeling machine, obtaining a digital image of a front side of the reject mailpiece, and attempting to resolve an address of the mailpiece based on the digital image;
if the address is resolved successfully, in the labeling machine, placing a new label on the mailpiece, and applying machine-readable indicia to the new label indicating a postal delivery point corresponding to the resolved address; and
thenreturning the mailpiece to the DPS sorting process.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods, apparatus, software and systems are disclosed for improved processing and especially sorting of mailpieces in order to reduce expensive manual steps. Mailpieces rejected during a first pass DPS sort, in one embodiment, are transferred to a special Reject Encoding Machine (REM) instead of a manual sort process. The REM preferably includes a labeling machine and on-board OCR engine, in order to read and barcode the reject mailpiece in a single processing step. This technique provides very fast turnaround so as to enable returning the mail to the DBCS in time to be included in the first pass run. In this way, the once rejected mailpieces are returned to resume automated processing.
104 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method for processing a mailpiece, comprising:
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receiving a mailpiece that was rejected from an automated sorting process during a first pass DPS—
delivery point sequence—
sort because the mailpiece barcode is not automatically resolvable;transferring the reject mailpiece to a labeling machine having an on-board OCR system; in the OCR system of the labeling machine, obtaining a digital image of a front side of the reject mailpiece, and attempting to resolve an address of the mailpiece based on the digital image; if the address is resolved successfully, in the labeling machine, placing a new label on the mailpiece, and applying machine-readable indicia to the new label indicating a postal delivery point corresponding to the resolved address; and
thenreturning the mailpiece to the DPS sorting process. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A reject encoding machine (REM) for processing rejected mail pieces to reduce manual processing, comprising:
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input means for receiving a rejected mailpiece where the mailpiece was rejected due to failure to automatically resolve an address of the mailpiece; a driven transfer track for automatically moving the mailpiece to an image capture position within the reject encoding machine; an image capture device arranged to capture an image of a mailpiece positioned in the image capture position; an address resolution means for determining an address of the mailpiece from the captured Image; and labeling means for labeling the mailpiece in accordance with the determined address. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13)
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14. A method for sorting of mail pieces into DPS Delivery Point Sequence, comprising the steps of:
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in an initial processing system, automatically reading an address of a mailpiece, and applying a bar code to the mailpiece, the bar code indicating a postal delivery point corresponding to the address; assembling a plurality of such bar-coded mail pieces into a batch for further processing; processing the batch of mail pieces in a delivery bar code sequence DBCS sorting machine, in which the DBCS reads the bar code of each mailpiece, and directs each mailpiece into a selected output bin based on the bar code; rejecting from the DBCS machine a mailpiece for which the barcode was not successfully resolved; automatically feeding the rejected mailpiece into a reject encoding machine, instead of directing the rejected mailpiece to manual sort; in the reject encoding machine, resolving the address of the rejected mailpiece; in the reject encoding machine, applying a barcode to the rejected mailpiece, the bar code indicating a postal delivery point corresponding to resolved address; and returning the mailpiece back into the DBCS machine while the machine is still processing the first pass of delivery point sequencing of the batch of mail pieces from which the rejected mailpiece came, so as to continue automated processing without manual sorting. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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Specification