JPS6143115B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Field of Application) The present invention relates to a postal letter processing method in which various supplied postal letters are automatically sorted and then read and sorted and accumulated.

(Prior art) Mail placed in a mailbox by a sender or submitted to a post office counter is subjected to processing such as sorting, sorting, stamping, reading, sorting, and bundling at the post office (sending office). It is then sent to the delivery office. Then, the delivery office further sorts the arrived mail and sends it to each post office. Each post office further sorts the sent mail in the order of delivery and performs final delivery work.

Recently, these individual processes have been carried out fully automatically to improve efficiency.

In other words, in Japan, since postal codes were established in 1962, automatic reading and sorting machines that sort and collect mail by reading postal codes have been in widespread use.

Furthermore, even if postal code systems have been established overseas, there are many countries that have low achievement rates. For example, information is converted into a mark such as a bar code and recorded on the mail. Also, if the postal code is written on it, it can be read mechanically.
Marks such as barcodes are printed according to the reading results. After that, the index information is read and automatically processed by the machine.

As such a device, there is a device as shown in US Pat. No. 3,703,628. This device reads alphanumeric data on mail items using OCR, converts them into barcode-like codes based on the reading results, prints them, and then sorts and accumulates them by reading the barcodes.

Therefore, once a barcode has been attached to a mailpiece, the destination can be detected simply by reading the barcode, and the mailpiece can be processed using an inexpensive automatic mail reading and sorting device.

For this reason, the above-mentioned apparatus may be installed in large post offices where mail is handled in a concentrated manner, and a sorting apparatus equipped with a barcode reader may be placed in small post offices.

However, this device cannot process mail items that do not have characters, numbers, etc. written on them. Therefore, such mail must be sorted by the operator. Further, the operator must take out the stacked mail pieces with barcode-like codes printed thereon and reinsert them into the second document feeding device. This has caused a problem in that the burden on the operator increases.

(Problems to be solved by the invention) This invention was made based on the above circumstances, and it prevents an increase in the burden on the operator and automatically performs a series of processes from sorting letters to reading them, sorting them, and accumulating them. The purpose of this invention is to provide a method for processing postal letters.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides an inspection means for inspecting the presence or absence of a postal index and the presence or absence of a postal code in a letter, and an inspection of this inspection means. A conveying means for distributing and conveying each letter according to the result, a postal index reading device for reading the postal index of the letters distributed and conveyed by the conveying means, a postal code reading device for reading the postal code, and a postal index reading device for reading the postal code. automatic printing means for printing;
a postal indexing machine that assigns a postal index based on an operator's operation; a branching conveyance means that transports letters that cannot be read by the postal index reading device and the postal code reading device to the postal indexing machine; and the printing device. and a second index reading device for reading the postal index of a letter given a postal index by the indexing machine and a letter whose postal index has been read by the postal index reading device, and reading by the second index reading device. and a stacking section for sorting and stacking letters according to the results.

(Operation) Letters with no postal code or postal index written on them according to the inspection results of the inspection means are given an index by the postal indexing machine. Further, the letter containing the postal code is supplied to a postal code reading device, and an index is printed by an index printer based on the reading result. Then, the postal index is read and sorted and accumulated.

(Example) The present invention will be described below based on an example shown in the drawings. In the figure, 1 is a letter sorting machine that sorts postal letters (sealed letters, postcards, parcels, etc.) accepted at the office into letters that can be mechanically processed and letters that cannot be processed based on width, height, thickness, etc. 2 is a letter sending machine that continuously or intermittently sends letters such as acceptance letters, large-lot acceptance letters, fee-based payment letters, overseas letters, and postal office letters from other stations. Inspection devices 3a and 3b are connected to the letter sorting machine 1 and the letter sending machine 2, respectively, which are inspection means for inspecting the presence or absence of a postal index, the presence or absence of a postal code, and whether it is printed or handwritten. .

Various methods can be used to determine whether a character is a printed character or a handwritten character. That is, it is possible to compare a printed character pattern and a handwritten character pattern using OCR and make a determination based on the degree of similarity. However, such a determination method results in an expensive device. For this reason, it usually has a relatively simple configuration. In other words, when a postal code is written in printed letters, it is generally written along with the address. For this reason, in most letters in which the postal code is written in print, the postal code is not written in the postal code entry frame.

Furthermore, when a postal code is written in printed letters, the letters are spaced at equal intervals, so a projection signal of the scanning signal is formed, and based on the pitch, it is possible to determine whether it is a handwritten letter or a printed letter. Utilizing these two points, it is first checked whether information has been entered in the postal code entry frame using the same configuration as conventional postal code recognition. When information is entered within the postal code entry frame, it is determined to be handwritten characters. Furthermore, if no information is entered in the postal code entry frame and the characters on the address writing surface are evenly spaced, it is determined that the address is printed characters. Further, if no characters are written in the postal code entry frame and the pitch of characters on the address writing surface is not constant, it is determined that no postal code is written. The presence or absence of a postal index is detected by scanning the area where the postal index of the letter is recorded using a mark reader.

Further, a distribution conveyance device 5 having a plurality of distribution conveyance paths 4a to 4d for distributing and conveying letters according to the inspection results is connected to the inspection devices 3a and 3b. Buffer take-out portions 5a to 5d are provided at the terminal ends.

The distribution conveyance device 5 is constituted by a conveyance mechanism such as the distribution conveyance device described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 44-10693.

Specifically, Japanese Patent Publication No. 44-10693 discloses a conveying device in which letters picked up by a suction belt are conveyed by a pair of opposing conveyor belts, and a gate is provided at a branching section to selectively switch letters to each conveyance path. A device is shown, and the configuration described above can be applied as the distribution and conveyance device.

The buffer extractor 5a has a postal index reading device 6a as a reading means.
However, 5b has a printed postal code reading device 6b as a reading means, 5c has a handwritten postal code reading device 6c as a reading means, and 5d has an indexing machine 6d for writing a postal postal index by an operator. These postal index reading device 6a, printed postal code reading device 6b and handwritten postal code reading device 6c are connected to each other, and these postal index reading device 6a, printed postal code reading device 6b and handwritten postal code reading device 6c are connected to the buffer take-out section 5d of the indexing machine 6d via a branch conveying path 7 which is a branch conveying means. connected.

The indexing machine 6d is, for example,
The inkjet printer mechanism described in US Pat. No. 3,703,628 may be combined with the apparatus of No. 25733 to form an appropriate structure.

That is, in the system disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 42-25733, an operator sets a symbol corresponding to the address of the letter and records it on the letter by punching or printing. The recorded marks are then read by a reading device, and the letters are sorted and accumulated.

Further, in the above-mentioned US Pat. No. 3,703,628, characters recorded on a letter are read using OCR, a code mark corresponding to the reading result is recorded using an inkjet printer, and the code mark is read to classify the letter. What accumulates is shown.

Therefore, by combining the devices shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 42-25733 and US Pat. No. 3,703,628, the indexing machine 6d of the present invention can generate index information corresponding to the destination information entered by the operator. Printing is now done using an inkjet printer.

Further, the above-mentioned indexing machine 6d may be, for example,
Twenty units are arranged in parallel, and each of them is provided with an unknown letter accumulating section 8 for accumulating letters with unknown addresses. Furthermore, the printed postal code reading device 6b
Connected to the handwritten postal code reading device 6c are index printers 9a and 9b, which are printing means for printing a postal index on a letter by an inkjet method, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,628. , these index printers 9a, 9b, the above-mentioned postal index reading device 6a, and indexing machine 6.
d are respectively connected to a distribution/accumulation conveying device 10 which is a conveying means. Distribution and accumulation conveyor device 10
is composed of a distribution conveyance path 12 and a double-return conveyance path 13 for distributing and conveying letters to the following stacking section 11, and this double-return conveyance path 13 has a rejected letter accumulation section 14 in the middle. It is connected to the buffer extraction section 5a.

On the other hand, the distribution conveyance path 12 includes a buffer takeout section 15 and a second postal index reading device 16.
It is connected to the letter accumulating section 11 via.

In addition, this letter accumulation section 11 includes a private office box 17, an in-office delivery box 18, an overseas letter box 19, and an other box 20.
and a sorting pocket group 21..., and these sorting pocket groups 21... are provided with a bunching device 22... for bunching the sorted letters.

Next, the operation of the postal letter processing system configured as described above will be explained. All letters sorted by the letter sorter 1 and letters sent from the letter sender 2 are optically inspected for the presence or absence of a postal index and the presence or absence of a postal code when passing through inspection devices 3a and 3b. Letters will be distributed according to the results of this test. That is, since the distributing and conveying device 5 is composed of the distributing and conveying paths 4a to 4d having known sorting gates as described above, based on the inspection results of the inspection devices 3a and 3b, the postal indexing letter is sent to 4a and the printed letter is Postal code assigned letters are distributed to 4b, handwritten postal code assigned letters are distributed to 4c, and letters that are not assigned to any of them are distributed to 4d, and then supplied to buffer extraction units 5a to 5d, where they are temporarily stored in the accumulation unit. be done.

The letters that have entered the buffer take-out units 5a to 5d are taken out continuously or intermittently from there and supplied to the next postal index reader 6a, printed postal code reader 6b, handwritten postal code reader 6c, and indexing machine 6d. be done. At this time, the letter that has passed through the postal index reading device 6a is directly supplied to the distribution/accumulation conveying device 10 because the postal index is read there, but the letter is directly supplied to the distribution/accumulation conveyance device 10, but is also sent to the printed postal code reading device 6b and the handwritten postal code reading device 6c. The letters that have passed through are input to the next index printers 9a and 9b, and after a postal index corresponding to the above-mentioned postal code is printed on the letters, they are supplied to the distribution/accumulation conveying device 10.

At this time, the letters that cannot be read by each of the postal index reading device 6a, the printed postal code reading device 6b, and the handwritten postal code reading device 6c are sent to the buffer extraction section via a branch conveyance path 7 having a known sorting gate. 5d, and an index is given by the indexing machine 6d based on the operator's operation. The letters thus supplied to the distribution/accumulation conveyance device 10 and the letters from the indexing machine 6d enter the buffer take-out section 15 via the distribution conveyance path 12, where they are once accumulated and then transferred to the second postal index. The reading device 16 is supplied with the information.

Therefore, all the letters are finally read and sorted by the second postal index reading device 16, placed in a predetermined sorting box or sorting pocket, etc. in the accumulation section 11, and then transferred to the bundling device 22. As a result, they are sorted by addressee.

If a failure occurs in the sorting pocket 21 of the accumulation section 11 during such operation, letters destined for a limited number of destinations will accumulate in the buffer takeout section 15 and become full, but at this time a full signal is sent to a control device (not shown). Since the distributing and accumulating conveyance device 10 is provided with a return conveyance path 13, letters to be sent to the buffer takeout section 15 are transferred to the return conveyance path by a known sorting gate. 1
3 to the buffer take-out section 5a. As a result, the postal index reading device 6a, the printed postal code reading device 6b, the handwritten postal code reading device 6
c and the indexing machine 6d to the accumulating section 11
Of all the letters destined for
Letters destined for the destination are temporarily accumulated in the buffer take-out section 5a. When the failure is resolved, the letters from the buffer removal section 5a are read by the postal index reading device 6a and directed to the stacking section 11. While the sorting pocket 21 is out of order, as a general rule, removal from the buffer removal section 5a is stopped. , acceptance only. For this reason, the buffer take-out section 5a is configured to have a large capacity, but when the buffer is operated, the letters will be circulated through the return conveyance path 13.

In addition, in the above embodiment, the buffer extraction part 5
Although the capacity of a is increased, the buffer extraction portion 15 may be increased in size instead. However, since this method requires a large degree of redundancy and is uneconomical, the above embodiment is more effective.

As described above, according to the above embodiment, a series of processes from sorting letters to reading them, sorting them, and accumulating them can be performed continuously and automatically, so that the burden on the operator is greatly reduced. Furthermore, processing efficiency can be improved compared to the conventional system which is divided into a plurality of processing machines.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, an increase in the burden on the operator can be prevented and letters can be processed automatically.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawing is a system diagram showing an embodiment of the postal letter processing method of the present invention. 3a-3b...Inspection device (inspection means), 4a-
4d...Distribution conveyance path (conveyance means), 6a...Postal index reading device, 6b...Printed postal code reading device, 6c...Handwritten postal code reading device, 6d
... Indexing machine (postal indexing machine), 7... Branch conveying path (branching conveying means), 9a~
9b... Index printer (printing means), 11... Accumulating unit, 16... Second postal index reading device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 Inspection means for inspecting the presence or absence of a postal index and the presence or absence of a postal code on a letter, a conveyance means for distributing and conveying each letter according to the inspection results of this inspection means, and letters distributed and conveyed by this conveyance means A postal index reading device for reading the postal index of The postal indexing machine, which assigns a postal index based on an operator's operation to a letter determined to have no postal code or postal index, and the postal index reading device and postal code reading device described above were unable to read the letter. branching conveyance means for conveying letters to the postal indexing machine, letters that have been given a postal index by the automatic printing means and the postal indexing machine, and letters whose postal index has been read by the postal index reading device; A method for processing postal letters, comprising: a second postal index reading device for reading a postal index; and a stacking section for sorting and stacking letters based on the reading results of the second postal index reading device.