Classifying – separating – and assorting solids – Sorting special items – and certain methods and apparatus for... – Traveling item turned to predetermined position
Reexamination Certificate
2001-06-04
2004-02-03
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)
Classifying, separating, and assorting solids
Sorting special items, and certain methods and apparatus for...
Traveling item turned to predetermined position
C209S584000, C209S900000, C209S918000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06685030
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for collating a plurality of flats mail items for a plurality of carrier routes into carrier walk order sequence (CWS) for each respective route.
More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for collating flats mail for multiple carrier routes using expanded capabilities of the Flats Bundle Collator (FBC) described and claimed in the aforementioned parent application Ser. No. 09/310,221, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,099.
2. Description of Related Art
The United States Post Service (USPS) allows the mailing industry to prepare mail in a number of formats and sequences. Levels of savings incentives are provided to mailers to format the mail as closely as possible to the actual sequence that the mail is delivered. In doing so, the USPS creates internal savings by reducing the amount of processing and handling required to distribute and deliver the mail and passes a portion of this savings back to their customers through the incentives. For example, a mailing prepared to “carrier route” is prepared by separately packaging the product in bundles. Each bundle goes to a specific carrier at a specific post office. The USPS can then process this mail by shipping it directly to the specific post office delivery unit (DU) rather than shipping it through a number of distribution facilities and processing it within those facilities. At the specific (destination) post office, the clerks can simply distribute each bundle to the appropriate carrier, rather than having to break down bundles and sort the mail within the bundle to the carriers. At each step in the distribution process, savings are realized by reducing the amount of processing required.
As carriers receive their mail for the day, they sort the mail in into what is referred to as “Carrier Walk Sequence”. They do so by “casing” the mail. This operation is the process of placing each piece of mail into a cubbyhole in a matrix of cubbyholes. This is done in such a manner that by placing and then removing the mail from the cubbyholes the carrier creates a bundle of mail that is in exactly the sequence that they will deliver it. All mail for each address in the route is together. As the carrier walks or drives their route, they simply remove mail from the top of the bundle at each stop. Various metrics are used to determine the rate at which mail can be cased. Mail presented to the carrier in walk sequence can be cased much faster than purely random mail. Typically a carrier cases random mail at 8 pieces per minute and sequenced mail at 18 pieces per minute. In order to facilitate more productive casing operations, the USPS will pass a portion of the savings created by sequenced mail back to the mailers in incentives (i.e. mailers are charged less per piece to mail a sequenced mailing than to mail a random mailing).
Recently, the USPS has identified the need for a Flats Bundle Collator (FBC), such as the system disclosed in the aforementioned parent application Ser. No. 09/310,221, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,099. This system takes multiple flats (periodicals and similarly sized mail) mailings for a single carrier route and automatically collates them together into a single bundle, similar to the output of the carrier casing operation. In order to perform this operation, it was thought that each individual mailing would preferably be in carrier walk sequence and the system would then simply collate the sequenced mailings together. While this constraint is true for most collating systems, this application describes a process that would eliminate this constraint for the Flats Bundle Collator by intelligently applying the inherent characteristics of the system design, by expanding the system to process mail items from multiple carrier routes during overlapping time periods.
In general, Delivery Unit (DU) operations are consistent from one post office to another; however, different route types (rural, city, park and loop) may process flats in slightly different manners within the same facility. At present, the flats to be processed arrive from a variety of sources in a number of different ways, namely:
(a) Mailers may drop ship saturation mailings 2 to 7 days prior to the delivery per an agreement with the local postmaster.
(b) Other mailings can arrive on pallets (5-digit periodicals, national advertisements or catalogs), after passing through the postal network of facilities, as cross-dock material.
(c) Other material may be broken down from pallets at an upstream facility if a pallet was shipped as 3-digit material.
(d) Other flats may have been processed on flats sorting equipment, and arrive processed to carrier route.
(e) Still more material can pass through Bulk Mail Centers as bundles before arriving at the DU.
With the exception of saturation mailings, the majority of this material is not currently in carrier walk sequence (cws). Bundles may be in Enhanced Carrier Line-of-Travel (ECLOT) or in carrier route but not walk sequence. Preferably, bundles will have an 11-digit (ZIP+4+2) delivery point bar code. Many saturation mailings will have no bar code and may be addressed to “Postal Customer” with no address. Other mailings may have 5 or 9 digit ZIP Codes and “marriage” mailings consisting of two materials: an address card or leaflet and a second mailing with no address label intended to be left at the same address as the card. While some of this material does not meet the current specification for processing on a Flats Bundle Collator, such as that of the aforementioned parent application, the vast majority, if not all, of this material will be modified in the future for processing on this type of machine. Or, the machinery can be modified to accommodate this wider mail base (i.e. addition of OCR) if the cost/benefits analysis indicates that it is fiscally beneficial to do so.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to expand the use and capabilities of the FBC system of the aforementioned parent application Ser. No. 09/310,221, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,099, by using some of the storage towers thereof as pre-staging areas for multi-carrier routes, in addition to the tower's primary capabilities for collation of single carrier routes.
It is another object of the present invention to alter the footprint configuration of the FBC to facilitate loading and unloading by a single operator at a single station.
It is a further object of the present invention to expand the FBC to process random mailings, and additional feeders.
The objects of the invention are fulfilled by providing a method of collating a plurality of mail items into a final sequenced set of the items for delivery to predetermined delivery points of a plurality of carrier routes, comprising the steps of:
a) feeding the mail items from a single input stream to a staging station;
b) sampling each mail item in the input stream to determine a carrier route identity, and a delivery point thereof;
c) pre-staging selected ones of the mail items at the staging station into a plurality of subsets of mail items, said staging station having a plurality of storage units X
1
to X
n
, wherein n is the total number of storage units, said storage units temporarily storing said items in said carrier-specific subsets by inserting each mail item into a carrier-specific subset in a selected one of the storage units;
d) selectively sorting the mail items of either pre-staged carrier-specific subsets or mail items of a carrier route being fed from the single input stream at the staging station into one or more of subsets of mail items re-sequenced into an intermediate order, as an intermediate step to achieving said final sequenced set, said storage units temporarily storing said items in said subsets by;
1) inserting each mail item into any selected one of said storage units X
1
to X
n
in accordance with an insertion plan consistent with an extraction plan for the mail items from those storage units for achi
Birch Stewart Kolasch & Birch, LLP.
Miller Jonathan R.
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Walsh Donald P.
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