Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – For cost/price – Postage meter system
Utility Patent
1998-03-14
2001-01-02
Voeltz, Emanuel Todd (Department: 2761)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
For cost/price
Postage meter system
Utility Patent
active
06169977
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A shipping carrier is a company that provides shipping services for letters, packages, bulk goods, or any other item to be shipped. Carriers can perform a variety of shipping services. For example, they can deliver express shipments, e.g. airmail for letters and second-day air for small packages. Moreover, carriers can deliver ground shipments for packages, or “LTL” shipments for bulk goods. The term “LTL” means “Less Than Truckload” and applies to any ground carrier shipment of standard commodities, for example, rated in units of hundreds of pounds. Shipments of bulk goods or standard commodities usually occupy a portion of a truck trailer, hence “less than truckload,” but may require an entire truckload, occasionally known as “TL” shipments.
Each carrier has its own rate structure for charging shippers for transporting their goods. Typically, these rates structures are complex and involve a variety of factors. For example, carriers often charge different prices by weight, sometimes with different weight classifications. As another example, carrier rates may be dependent on the distance to the destination. In addition, some carriers charge a premium for shipping classes, e.g. first class and second class, with shorter or longer guaranteed delivery times. In some cases, carriers may grant discounts for volume. Thus, the business rules for rating items to be transported varies greatly from carrier to carrier. These rating calculations may change over time for a particular carrier as its rates and business rules are updated. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide mechanisms for logistics systems for shipping goods to facilitate updating how carrier rates are calculated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,716 for a POSTAGE VALUE DETERMINING SCALE WITH EXPANDABLE MEMORY PORT, issued Feb. 7, 1984 to Dlugos et al. (Hereinafter referred to as Dlugos), is an example of prior art systems that have proven their market value. Dlugos teaches a postage value determining scale, which includes a processor, which can access postage data stored in a rate PROM mounted on a card or circuit board. The scale's processor is able to calculate postage based upon rate data contained in the PROM. Dlugos is limited in its capabilities by memory constraints associated with the PROM card. These limitations are overcome by an interface cable that allows access to an expanded carrier board if additional service charges need to calculated.
A drawback to Dlugos is memory, another is the number of PROMs that need to be utilized in changing the rates available to the system user. Every time changes to the rate structure, carrier classes, or discount levels had to be communicated for each carrier, a new set of PROMs had to be shipped to the system user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,397 for a CARRIER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ENABLING DETERMINATION OF CHARGES WITH DISCOUNTS, issued Dec. 10, 1991 to Barns-Slavin et al. (hereinafter referred to as Barns-Slavin), improved upon the teachings of Dlugos by utilizing greater memory capability and assigning class selections to one-touch keys mounted on the scale device. The data processing components of Barns-Slavin would store shipping charge data for a plurality of carriers or shipping classes. Weight data read from the scale would provide the variable needed to calculate appropriate shipping charges. Barns-Slavin also taught the ability to update data by inputting a PROM to the system. Rate changes, where a carrier changes its basic rate structure, still require a PROM card under Barns-Slavin. The result is a system utilizing one or more PROM cards to realize the classes resident thereon, each card subject to change when a customer changed carriers or classes for which they were subscribing.
Thus, the art began to search for a more efficient way of downloading change to systems providing rating capabilities to shippers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,109 for an UP/DOWN LOADING OF DATABASES, issued Nov. 3, 1992 to Keating et al. (hereinafter referred to as Keating), attempted to make data availability a more convenient process by providing user devices, such as certain postage meters, with a means of linking directly with a data base at a data center. Keating was limited in its flexibility in that it suitably maintained and distributed data for only one carrier. Rate shopping among carriers and classes of services was limited under the teachings of Keating. There still existed a need for flexibility in parcel processing systems.
One such method for improved flexibility within a carrier environment was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,661,653 which issued Aug. 26, 1997 to Kulik (hereinafter referred to as Kulik). Kulik taught a method for defining a custom rates template that would allow more efficient handling of rates for mixed mail processing. Kulik was limited in its ability to respond to rates change data once the template had been developed for use.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to overcome the limitations of the prior art through a method and system for calculating shipping rates for a plurality of carriers and which allows for ease of updating of individual carrier rates for certain classes and services while significantly reducing costs associated with PROM production, distribution, and storage.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
There exists a need for a less resource-intensive, carrier rating system that can calculate shipping rates for a plurality of carriers and which allows ease of updating of individual carrier rates for certain classes and services. More specifically, there is a need for costs associated with class and discount services available to system users.
These and other needs are met by the present invention,_which is a method and system of assigning rates within an electronic scale, wherein the rates are based upon class service and discount level.
The method of the invention begins with the establishment of a set of classes of service available for a particular carrier. Each one of the classes comprises one or more discount levels. The classes are embedded into the memory of an electronic scale and a set of data comprising the classes is made available to the system. Updating of the data in the embedded set of classes, is accomplished by defining the update data and the one or more discount levels which are available in each class. In turn, each of the discount levels is defined.
A system user limits the classes for which they want access as based upon need for a particular carrier's services or based upon whether or not particular carrier discounts are required. The carrier and/or service choices are encoded; the encoding determining a unique number that is indicative of the parameters selected by a system user for a particular system. Thus, all of the available classes and services may be embedded within a given system, but the only services which can be accessed are those that match the unique number and its respective coding.
A system user who desires to use a particular class of services would pay for those services required and a unique number would be generated for the user's system. The unique number comprises a carrier token; a class token; and a set of discount level bytes representative of the available discount within the class. The unique number is entered into the system through a setup program by the system user and triggers access to services represented by the class. The access is accomplished by entering the unique number into a setup program embedded in the electronic scale; the number is then matched against a predetermined list of services available in the electronic scale. An algorithm is then applied to the unique number so that the selected services will be available to the system user when that user utilizes the rating application. The number's corresponding services and data can then be accessed through a rates manager program in the system's rating application which is embedded in the electronic scale. The system uses the newly available data to supersede corresponding data in the embedded set of
Hasbani Jacques E.
Lin Linda S.
Dixon Thomas A.
Levitsky Paul A.
Melton Michael E.
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Todd Voeltz Emanuel
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