Patent Application
20050267848
This invention relates generally to methods and systems for applying additional postage to mail items, and, more particularly, to methods and systems for applying additional postage to mail items within presorted mail.
Many postal systems offer customer discounts for performing presort prior to providing the mail to the postal system. In the presort environment, mail piece discounts are provided for varying levels of presort, e.g., 5-digit postal code or more detailed postal destination definition. In a mailing qualifying for discounts (automation, etc.), postage must be affixed to each mail piece at the lowest rate claimed in the mailing.
Historically, mail pieces not qualifying for a discounted rate in a mailing, i.e., reject pieces, have gone through a post-presort process to add additional postage to each piece so that the piece can be mailed at the Single Piece rate. Under some mailing rates, the additional postage (the upcharge), is identical for pieces of different weights, e.g., one (1) ounce and 2 ounce. Under some recent mailing rates, the upcharge is different for different weights of the mail piece, requiring the separation of mail pieces of different weights in addition to the process of applying additional postage.
For mailing rates in which the additional postage (the upcharge) is identical for different weights of the mail piece, additional postage can be applied using a postage meter affixed to a mailing machine with an automatic feeder. The upcharge, i.e., additional postage, is keyed in to the postage meter by an operator and mail pieces are fed through the mailing machine allowing the postage meter to apply the additional postage. As the upcharge is identical for mail pieces of different weights, no separation of mail pieces by weight is required.
For mailing rates in which the additional postage (the upcharge) is different for different weights of the mail piece, manual sorting by weight of the mail pieces not qualifying for a discounted rate in a mailing (reject pieces) is typically utilized. The mail pieces can be weighed and sorted by weight when it is determined that the mail pieces do not qualify for a discounted rate. Alternatively, after determining that the mail pieces do not qualify for a discounted rate, the mail pieces are weighed and sorted by weight.
There is a need for methods and systems for automatically applying additional postage to mail items within presorted mail.
Methods and systems for automatically applying additional postage to mail items within presorted mail are disclosed.
The method of this invention for acting upon presorted mail, in order to adjust postage applied to the presorted mail, includes the step of determining the correctness of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail. If the postage applied is incorrect (incorrect postage being postage that is less the required postage), the method of this invention also includes the following steps:
The method of this invention can also include the step of obtaining an actual amount of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail. The actual amount of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail can, in one embodiment, be obtained by obtaining an image of each individual item within the presorted mail and processing the image of each individual item in order to obtain the actual amount of the postage applied to each individual item.
Systems that implement the method of this invention are also disclosed.
Methods and system for automatically applying additional postage to mail items within presorted mail are disclosed herein below.
A flowchart of an embodiment of the method 10 of this invention is shown in
In one embodiment, the method 10 can include obtaining an actual amount (a value) of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail (not shown). The actual amount of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail could be, in one specific embodiment, be obtained as an input when the correctness of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail 20 is determined (step 30,
A block diagram representation of an embodiment 100 of the system of this invention is shown in
Another embodiment of the means for obtaining an actual amount (a value) of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail is also shown in
In another embodiment (not shown) of the system of this invention, a mail sorter is modified to include a weighing sub-system capable of weighing each individual item being transported by the transport system, while being transported, and one or more computer readable memories having computer readable code embodied therein, the computer readable code being capable of causing one or more processors to calculate a required postage for each individual item based on the weight of each individual item. The additional amount of postage to be applied to each of the individual items can be calculated from a comparison of the required postage and the postage previously applied to each of the individual items within the presorted mail. The transport sub-system of the mail sorter is capable of transporting the individual mail items. The computer at the mail sorter provides the one or more processors, the one or more computer readable memories, and can be modified to include the computer readable code. The actual amount of the postage applied to individual items within the presorted mail can, in this embodiment, be entered as input to the computer or be read by a bar-code reader. The postage applying sub-system can be incorporated into the sorter or postage can be applied as an indicator.
In general, the techniques described above may be implemented, for example, in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. The techniques described above may be implemented in one or more computer programs executing on a programmable computer including a processor, a storage medium readable by the processor (including, for example, volatile and non-volatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device. Program code may be applied to data entered using the input device to perform the functions described and to generate output information. Input device, as used herein, refers to any device, such as, but not limited to, a keyboard, a mouse, voice input, a touch sensitive pad or display, a computer pen, or a writing tablet, that is used to provide input data to provide data to programmable computer. The output information may be applied to one or more output devices.
Each computer program within the scope of the claims below may be implemented in any programming language, such as assembly language, machine language, a high-level procedural programming language, or an object-oriented programming language. The programming language may be a compiled or interpreted programming language.
Each computer program may be implemented in a computer program product tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage device for execution by a computer processor. Method steps of the invention may be performed by a computer processor executing a program tangibly embodied on a computer-readable medium to perform functions of the invention by operating on input and generating output.
Common forms of computer-readable or usable media include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic medium, a CDROM, any other optical medium, punched cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave, or any other medium from which a computer can read.
Although the invention has been described with respect to various embodiments, it should be realized this invention is also capable of a wide variety of further and other embodiments within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
