Image analysis – Applications – Mail processing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-18
2004-12-07
Johns, Andrew W. (Department: 2621)
Image analysis
Applications
Mail processing
Reexamination Certificate
active
06829369
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
Individuals, institutions, and post office employees introduce items of mail into the postal system at local post office branches. Once the receiving post office branch is in possession of a mail piece, the mail piece begins a journey through a highly organized system. Mail received into the postal system at a local branch office is eventually transported to a centralized postal hub. There are in excess of 250 postal hubs in the United States. These “hubs” are known by alternative names including (i) processing and distribution centers, (ii) general mail facilities and (iii) mail distribution centers. Postal hubs are regional mail centers that service individual post office branches within a particular range of ZIP Codes. Typically, a postal hub services one or more “three-digit ZIP Code areas.” For example, the Central Massachusetts Processing and Distribution Center (also known as the “Worcester Facility”) services the local post office branches situated in all the ZIP Codes beginning with “014”, “015,” “016,” and “017.” That is, mail destined for or departing from a local branch office within a ZIP Code beginning with any one of the four sets of three digits in the previous sentence will, under normal circumstances, pass through the Worcester facility. The Worcester facility services more than two dozen towns, each with its own local branch office. Nationally, the 250 plus hubs collectively service approximately five thousand individual postal branch offices.
Mail coming into and going out of the various local branch offices in a particular geographic region is processed through one or more hubs before delivery to its final destination. For instance, a mail piece originating in Southbridge, Mass. (01550) and destined for Littleton, Mass. (01460) is processed through the Worcester facility only (i.e., a single hub), because the ZIP Code of origin and the destination ZIP Code are both serviced by the Worcester hub. However, in many instances, a mail piece is processed through two hubs between the time of its introduction into the system and its ultimate delivery to an addressee.
This is the case, for instance, when a mail piece is received at a branch office that is not serviced by the same hub that services the branch office responsible for delivery of the mail piece to the intended recipient. In such a case, a mail piece received at a branch office is transported to an “outgoing hub” where the mail piece is sorted and routed for transportation to an “incoming hub.” The incoming hub is the hub that services the local branch office responsible for delivery of the mail piece to the intended recipient. For example, a mail piece originating at Littleton, Mass. (01460) and destined for Owego, N.Y. (13827) is transported from Littleton, Mass. to the Worcester, Mass. facility (i.e, the outgoing hub). At the Worcester facility, the mail piece is sorted and deposited on an appropriate vehicle for transport to the postal hub at Binghamton, N.Y. (i.e., the incoming hub) because the Binghamton hub services the local post office branches beginning with “137,” “138,” and “139.” Once delivered to the Binghamton hub, the mail piece is sorted and delivered to the local, Owego, N.Y. branch office (13827) from which it is transported to the mailbox of the addressee, for example.
Mechanical, electronic and computer apparatus enable postal clerks to process large volumes of mail each day. Larger postal facilities (e.g., hubs) are equipped with rigid containers, bins on wheels, conveyor belts, forklifts, cranes, and other machinery to facilitate the handling of large quantities of mail. There are also segregating machines to separate a mixture of mail into different types.
Some first-class mail is precancelled. If not precancelled, mail pieces must go through a facer-canceler machine. Such a machine can process tens of thousands of letters an hour. Facing is the process of aligning letters so that the address side is facing the canceler, with the stamps in the same corner. The machine prints wavy black lines over the stamp, for example, canceling it so that it cannot be used again. Alongside the stamp is printed a circle containing the date, place, and time of stamping. The circle and wavy lines constitute the letter's postmark. Typically, mail pieces are canceled at a hub.
After postmarking is completed, mail pieces are ready to be sorted according to destination. Traditionally, clerks sorted mail pieces by hand according to destination, using racks of pigeonholes, called distribution cases. Increasingly, however, the sorting process has been automated.
The United States introduced ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) Codes in 1963. Users of the mail service place a five-digit number (ZIP Code) at the end of the address. The first three digits identify the section of the country to which the mail piece is being sent, while the last two identify the specific post office or zone at the destination. ZIP Codes enable the use of optical and electronic reading and sorting equipment.
In the 1980's the United States Postal Service introduced a voluntary nine-digit ZIP Code system (i.e., ZIP+4). Four additional digits were added to the original ZIP Code after a hyphen to speed automated sorting operations. Of the four additional numbers, the first two indicate a specific sector of a city or town such as a cluster of streets or large buildings. The second two numbers represent an even smaller segment such as one side of a city block, a series of houses along a street, one floor of a large building, or a group of post office boxes. A still further refinement of this system was subsequently made with the introduction of eleven-digit codes (i.e., ZIP+4+2). The last two digits an eleven-digit code enable the pre-arrangement of mail pieces in accordance with a postal delivery person's “delivery sequence,” for example. That is, the tenth and eleventh digits of an eleven digit code enable the pre-arrangement of a plurality of mail pieces destined for a particular sector/segment of a city or town in accordance with the order in which they are to be delivered by the postal employee, for example. In a rural or suburban town, for instance, the last two digits of the eleven digit ZIP Code could correspond to a specific single family house or an individual unit of an apartment complex or other multifamily dwelling. In a city, a large office building might be designated as a sector, one or more floors of the building as a sub-sector and the tenth and eleventh digits used to designate individual suites or apartments within each sub-sector.
Increasingly, tasks once performed manually are now performed mechanically, electronically and by computers. For instance, destination addresses once read by human beings who sorted mail pieces into compartments based on destination city, for example, are now read by machine (e.g., scanned by optical character recognition apparatus). An image of a destination address is captured and stored in computer memory. Character recognition algorithms analyze the captured image and resolve it into a string of alphanumeric data to generate signals that instruct sorting machines where to route individual mail pieces. Such systems have dramatically increased the efficiency of the postal system and the overall volume of mail that the system can handle.
Despite the technological advances of recent decades, postal management is still largely concerned with the efficient administration and deployment of large bodies of manpower, the organization of large transport fleets, many aspects of property management, and financial and economic problems. Automation and computer technology have increasingly been exploited as a management aid with the realization that the postal service operates within a commercial market where competition from private companies can be fierce and efficiency is the watchword.
With a steady emphasis on efficiency, processes have been devised to allocate resources in order to facilitate the processing of as many mail pieces as possible during any par
Poulin Jeffrey Scott
Strebel Robert
Zanovitch Joseph P.
Franco Louis J.
Hogan Patrick M.
Johns Andrew W.
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Nakhjavan Shervin
LandOfFree
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