EP1066885A1 - Verbesserte Sortiervorrichtung - Google Patents

Verbesserte Sortiervorrichtung Download PDF

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Publication number
EP1066885A1
EP1066885A1 EP00401927A EP00401927A EP1066885A1 EP 1066885 A1 EP1066885 A1 EP 1066885A1 EP 00401927 A EP00401927 A EP 00401927A EP 00401927 A EP00401927 A EP 00401927A EP 1066885 A1 EP1066885 A1 EP 1066885A1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
mail
recipient
alert message
identified
determined
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Granted
Application number
EP00401927A
Other languages
English (en)
French (fr)
Other versions
EP1066885B1 (de
Inventor
Marc Divine
Emmanuel Faure
Enrico Perrozzi
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Quadient Technologies France SA
Original Assignee
Neopost Technologies SA
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Neopost Technologies SA filed Critical Neopost Technologies SA
Publication of EP1066885A1 publication Critical patent/EP1066885A1/de
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of EP1066885B1 publication Critical patent/EP1066885B1/de
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B07—SEPARATING SOLIDS FROM SOLIDS; SORTING
    • B07C—POSTAL SORTING; SORTING INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES, OR BULK MATERIAL FIT TO BE SORTED PIECE-MEAL, e.g. BY PICKING
    • B07C3/00—Sorting according to destination
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B07—SEPARATING SOLIDS FROM SOLIDS; SORTING
    • B07C—POSTAL SORTING; SORTING INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES, OR BULK MATERIAL FIT TO BE SORTED PIECE-MEAL, e.g. BY PICKING
    • B07C7/00—Sorting by hand only e.g. of mail

Definitions

  • the present invention relates exclusively to the field of mail processing and it relates more particularly to a improvement to sorting devices for mail items also present both at the postal administration level and in the courier services of businesses.
  • Mail sorting in commercial or industrial companies or in public administration today is a process essentially manual.
  • the mail service operator responsible for this task take mail items one by one, locate the person's mention or of the recipient department and, possibly after having opened this article of mail, deposit it in the locker corresponding to this person or to this service. It is clear that such a fully manual process is long and suffers from very low productivity. This is all the weaker as the number of lockers is important, whether people or services change frequently, or that the mail operator performs this task regularly or not (for example during a leave period when a trainee can replace the incumbent).
  • the present invention therefore aims to remedy this drawback by reducing the critical period between the end of sorting and actual delivery to recipient, so as to optimize the mail delivery cycle.
  • the invention also aims to guarantee a very simple implementation to from the various current sorting devices, both automatic, essentially opto-electronic, only semi-automatic, including voice recognition.
  • the identified recipient of the article of sorted mail is immediately notified that a mail is intended for it and it can then decide either to simply wait for it, without then intervening in the delivery process, either pick it up immediately (or to seek).
  • the recipient can directly consult the mail intended for him and possibly print it locally if he has adequate printing resources.
  • the two previous alert modes can be associates, sending the alert message determined by email being performed after at least one telephone communication attempt with the identified recipient remained unsuccessful.
  • the alert message determined may advantageously mention the sender's name. This makes it easier for the recipient to decide the opportunity to pick up his mail. It can also mention the number of mail items. Thus, the recipient is informed of the volume of mail intended for him.
  • the above method can be implemented in any sorting device comprising at least processing means for, from a table correspondence assigning to each predetermined recipient a number unique identification, identify a recipient of these mail items and to which is added either telephone dialing means for dial the phone number of the identified recipient of an item of mail and voice synthesis means for, once communication established, read a specific alert message to this identified recipient, either simply means of sending a message to an email address email address to the identified recipient comprising said determined alert message, digitization means to scan documents extracted from articles mail is also provided to attach these scanned documents to alert message determined in the form of a data file.
  • the telephone number of the identified recipient, the determined alert message and email address are retrieved of said correspondence table which includes for this purpose a number of telephone, a specific alert message and an email address electronic for each predetermined recipient.
  • the determined alert message also includes the name of the sender of the mail article.
  • this improved sorting device further includes a plurality of individual counters each indicating the number of mail items assigned to an identified recipient.
  • the object of the present invention is to optimize the cycle of distribution of mail by reducing delivery times to the recipient. It is implemented within the framework of existing sorting devices which they are fully automated, at medium or high speed as per example those present in the postal administration, or simply semi-automatic like sorting assistance devices manual present in small or medium enterprises. Two examples such manual sorting assistance devices intended to be implemented in corporate mail services are thus illustrated in Figure 1.
  • a first operator 1 (or possibly several) take in a mail bag 2 from of the postal administration the various mail items 3 to be made the object of sorting then, via a microphone 4, it reads the mentions worn on mail items to identify recipients and, these being recognized by the portable recognition means 5 of the assistance device (which includes a correspondence table between names recipient and locker identification numbers), he deposits the articles of mail in the lockers (for example 6A) of a storage unit 6 designated to him by the device through a headset 7.
  • a second operator 9 (or several) also take a mail item from the mail bag 2 but this time reading and determining the recipient of the articles from mail is carried out automatically by an optical reader 10 associated with character recognition software 12.
  • Recognition carries essentially on the name of the recipient of the mail item, the service or the department of the company to which this mail item is addressed. It can however also advantageously integrate the name of the sender (which can for example appear in the slogan of the imprint postal).
  • This recognition of the recipient of the mail item allows assign him a unique identification number corresponding to a locker storage cabinet 6 on which are for example clipped means 6B visual or audio type indication, energy independent.
  • These indicator means can be actuated from the optical reader 10 at through contactless transmission means constituted for example by optoelectronic link means and associated with this reader.
  • all the data forming the correspondence table is advantageously prerecorded in a memory 20 of the sorting device and processing means 22 are provided to compare the elements identified on the mail item (by example recipient, department, department, etc.) with those stored in this correspondence table.
  • This recognition is carried out by voice recognition means 24 with the first device (at level of reference 5 of FIG. 1) and by means of digitization and optical recognition 26 with the second device (also reference 12 of the figure 1).
  • speech synthesis means 28 are further provided to indicate to the recipient the identification number single of the locker where he must deposit the sorted mail item, this indication by means of display means 30 in the second device.
  • Figure 3 illustrates a simple example of organization (two components) of the above table: as input the names of the different people or services likely to be mail recipients in the company and on exit the locker identification code or number corresponding to this recipient.
  • locker number 001 is assigned to Purchasing department, this first locker also being Ms.'s personal locker Martin secretary of this service.
  • Locker N ° 002 is assigned to Mr Bernard, the locker N ° 003 to Mr Denis and locker N ° 004 to Mr Durant.
  • the processing means 22 of the sorting device (conventionally means of microprocessor calculation) means for dialing a number telephone 32 and / or means of sending an electronic mail 34, the capacity of the data memory 20 initially associated with the means of processing (conventionally a reprogrammable memory) being increased to include in the correspondence table on the one hand the numbers of telephone and / or email addresses of each recipient predetermined and on the other hand determined alert messages to be addressed to each particular recipient.
  • alert messages consist essentially either in an available mail mention or in a end of sorting mention, this last mention preferably associated with secretariat of a service or department allowing information general of all potential recipients and in particular of mail managers of each of the departments or services of the company.
  • the memory will advantageously include a part of RAM (RAM for example) in which can be individually stored names of senders of mail items noted during the initial reading of these articles.
  • This part of memory be can also receive a plurality of individual counters indicating each the number of mail items assigned to a particular recipient.
  • the sorting device may advantageously be supplemented by a digitizer 26 in A4 format for scan the documents contained in the articles of letters previously extracted (with the possible exception of those with a note of confidentiality).
  • the first line will be completed with the number of the Purchasing Department and the following message "sorting mail completed" which signals the end of the mail item sorting process.
  • the second, third and fourth lines will be completed by the numbers of phone and email respectively from Mr Bernard, Mr Denis and Mr Durant and by the following message "mail arrived” and the fifth line will include phone and mail numbers Ms. Martin's electronic mail as well as the same “mail arrived” message.
  • the operator performs the first step, ie a voice reading of the recipient registered on the mail item (step 100a) or an introduction of a first mail item into the optical reader 10 so that it can be digitized (step 100b).
  • a next step 102 different characters are recognized by comparing the data entered vocally or optically with the data in memory present at the correspondence table in order to identify the recipient, the service or the department and possibly the sender.
  • the next step 104 is to issue the unique identification code of the recognized recipient's locker (named person or department) either directly to the storage unit 6 (for displaying the 'associated indicator) or intended for the operator 1.
  • step 106 the telephone number associated with the recognized recipient is dialed and the pre-recorded alert voice message associated with example “incoming mail” is read automatically to the recipient when taking the line in a step 110.
  • the handset is not picked up (test in step 108), and after a determined number n of unsuccessful attempts (by example three), in a step 112, an electronic mail is sent to the address associated with the recognized recipient, this mail comprising the associated electronic alert message for example "Sort completed".
  • the scanned document is attached to the previous message in the form of a data file. If the recipient has means of printing in local, it can then directly print the document thus scanned without wait for the delivery of the original mail. It will then be noted that if each recipient proceeds to print the mails intended for him, the delivery of these letters becomes useless, the mail service then keeping all the original correspondences (thus ensuring the function of a Service Archive).
  • the invention is of course not limited to only examples of realization described above and those skilled in the art can without doing proof of inventive activity imagine other examples of achievement. So, we could consider dialing not a telephone number but a fax number for recipients who only have this mode Communication. We could also consider that communication causes a remote display on a particular indicator panel, the purpose essential of the invention being to prevent as soon as possible, in fact practically in real time, the recipient of the mail. So this recipient can react quickly and, by significantly reducing answer, it can increase the overall performance of its business.

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  • Sorting Of Articles (AREA)
  • Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)
  • Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)
EP20000401927 1999-07-07 2000-07-05 Verbesserte Sortiervorrichtung Expired - Lifetime EP1066885B1 (de)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
FR9908766A FR2795980A1 (fr) 1999-07-07 1999-07-07 Dispositif de tri ameliore
FR9908766 1999-07-07

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP1066885A1 true EP1066885A1 (de) 2001-01-10
EP1066885B1 EP1066885B1 (de) 2003-12-10

Family

ID=9547802

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP20000401927 Expired - Lifetime EP1066885B1 (de) 1999-07-07 2000-07-05 Verbesserte Sortiervorrichtung

Country Status (3)

Country Link
EP (1) EP1066885B1 (de)
DE (1) DE60007034T2 (de)
FR (1) FR2795980A1 (de)

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP2000986A2 (de) 2007-06-08 2008-12-10 Neopost Technologies Virtuelles Verteilungssystem von Postartikeln
US20120179769A1 (en) * 2001-04-09 2012-07-12 United States Postal Services System and method for predelivery notification using mail image

Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4314102A (en) * 1980-02-13 1982-02-02 Pitney Bowes Inc. Post office box monitoring system
US5444444A (en) * 1993-05-14 1995-08-22 Worldwide Notification Systems, Inc. Apparatus and method of notifying a recipient of an unscheduled delivery
US5677834A (en) * 1995-01-26 1997-10-14 Mooneyham; Martin Method and apparatus for computer assisted sorting of parcels
EP0821518A2 (de) * 1996-07-24 1998-01-28 S. Siedle & Söhne Übergabevorrichtung und Distributionsvorrichtung
US5794789A (en) * 1995-12-13 1998-08-18 Payson; William H. Semi-automated integrated sort system

Patent Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4314102A (en) * 1980-02-13 1982-02-02 Pitney Bowes Inc. Post office box monitoring system
US5444444A (en) * 1993-05-14 1995-08-22 Worldwide Notification Systems, Inc. Apparatus and method of notifying a recipient of an unscheduled delivery
US5677834A (en) * 1995-01-26 1997-10-14 Mooneyham; Martin Method and apparatus for computer assisted sorting of parcels
US5794789A (en) * 1995-12-13 1998-08-18 Payson; William H. Semi-automated integrated sort system
EP0821518A2 (de) * 1996-07-24 1998-01-28 S. Siedle & Söhne Übergabevorrichtung und Distributionsvorrichtung

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20120179769A1 (en) * 2001-04-09 2012-07-12 United States Postal Services System and method for predelivery notification using mail image
US9767496B2 (en) * 2001-04-09 2017-09-19 United States Postal Service System and method for predelivery notification using mail image
EP2000986A2 (de) 2007-06-08 2008-12-10 Neopost Technologies Virtuelles Verteilungssystem von Postartikeln

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
FR2795980A1 (fr) 2001-01-12
DE60007034T2 (de) 2004-07-01
EP1066885B1 (de) 2003-12-10
DE60007034D1 (de) 2004-01-22

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