EP0928641B1 - Device for assisting mail sorting by hand - Google Patents

Description

Field of the art

The present invention relates exclusively to the field of mail processing and more particularly relates to a device for assisting the manual sorting of mail items performed by an operator in a corporate area assigned specifically to the processing of mail.

Prior art

The sorting of mail in commercial or industrial enterprises or in public administrations is today an essentially manual process. When receiving the mail in the company, the operator responsible for this task takes one by one the mail items, identifies the mention of the recipient person or service and, possibly after opening this article of mail, the removal in the bin corresponding to that person or 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 traps is important, the services of the enterprise are constantly reorganized and the personnel assigned to this task are usually or only temporarily (for a period leave where a colleague or trainee can replace the permanent operator). Similarly, the same method of manual sorting can be used for mail leaving the company to the postal administration, in order to meet the requirements of this administration.

It is known from US Pat. No. 4,181,948, a manual sorting assistance system which aims to increase the productivity of this type of task. For this, it is proposed a housing having a fixed number, but relatively limited number of lockers (fifteen can go up to eighteen in the example shown), and intended to be placed on a worktable as office equipment (See Figure 4 of this patent). This housing is fully pre-wired with a power supply and a set of indicators assigned to each of the lockers of this housing. These indicators are operated from a personal computer type which is connected to the housing by a conventional serial computer link, according to the information entered on the keyboard of this computer by the operator of the sorting service concerned (in this case the code of the company in the case of a sort of airline tickets).

Unfortunately, the solution proposed by this US patent still has many disadvantages. First, it forces the operator to manually enter certain information (in the case of sorting mail, it would be the recipient of the mail item); which, in addition to the loss of productivity that this operation entails, is a source of errors. Then, it supposes to replace the traditional lockers or all other storage systems present today in the companies by the set proposed. Finally, its implementation seems difficult to envisage for small and medium-sized enterprises, ie for companies with more than one hundred people (and therefore having in practice at least 50 potential recipients of mail).

Automated manual sorting by recognition of a bar code type identification number is known from EP-A-0586883.

Object and definition of the invention

The present invention aims to overcome these disadvantages by providing a device that allows a very significant productivity gain with a manual sorting rate multiplied by at least a factor three, which allows a significant reduction in error rates and especially be adaptable to sorting devices currently in operation in companies. In addition, the device according to the invention should be of great ease of operation, can be implemented by one or more operators and have a reasonable cost. In addition, the device will have to be able to adapt quickly and simply to the various sorting methods currently used by companies.

These objects are achieved by a device for assisting the manual sorting of mail items according to claim 1.

By this particular structure, the device according to the invention can be set up without any constraint in all mail services of companies or administrations. All that is required is simply to arrange the indication means (by the removable fastening means) on the existing lockers or storage elements, without requiring the intervention of a technician to carry out any wiring and without the need to replace these elements. The device may comprise a single terminal that can scan both mail items of all formats and A4 documents or be organized around a personal computer equipped with a flatbed scanner for scanning A4 documents, the terminal performing the scanning only mail items. In either case, recognition may be OCR or manuscript type.

The invention thus makes it possible to eliminate the pre-sorting step and possibly to refine the sorting by limiting the subsequent steps.

Preferably, the non-contact transmission means comprise optoelectronic connection means, for example infrared, or radio link means.

Advantageously, the indicating means comprise audible or visual means of self-powered energy indication and being in the form of at least one indicator light or a luminous panel allowing the display of a number for treatment by batch of mail items. The light panel is arranged such that it can successively display several numbers, each corresponding to a specific position of a mail item in the batch processed.

The power supply of said indication means can be carried out by photovoltaic cells, inductive elements or more simply by a battery preferably having a duration of important operation, for example a lithium battery. The removable fastening means advantageously comprise a clip-type element or clips.

Brief description of the drawings

• la figure 1 représente un exemple de réalisation d'un dispositif d'assistance au tri manuel selon l'invention,
• les figures 2a et 2b illustrent deux types d'organisation envisageables pour assurer un tri manuel de courrier,
• les figures 3 et 4 montrent schématiquement les principaux éléments constituant le dispositif de la figure 1,
• la figure 5 représente un tableau comportant des données nécessaires à l'exploitation du dispositif selon l'invention, et
• la figure 6 est un organigramme explicitant le fonctionnement du dispositif selon l'invention.

Other characteristics and advantages of the present invention will emerge more clearly from the following description, given by way of non-limiting indication, with reference to the appended drawings, in which:

• FIG. 1 represents an exemplary embodiment of a device for assisting manual sorting according to the invention,
• FIGS. 2a and 2b illustrate two types of organization that can be envisaged to ensure manual sorting of mail,
• FIGS. 3 and 4 show schematically the main elements constituting the device of FIG. 1,
• FIG. 5 represents a table comprising data necessary for operating the device according to the invention, and
• Figure 6 is a flowchart explaining the operation of the device according to the invention.

Detailed description of a preferred embodiment

According to Figure 1, a manual sorting assistance device according to the invention is intended to be implemented in the mail services of companies or administrations. Typically, in these services, one or more operators 1 take in a box or bag of mail 2 from the postal administration, the various items of mail 3 to be sorted. A first sorting can be carried out to exclude confidential, strictly personal, urgent or immediately open items to be delivered to the recipient, then the operators read-one to one the addresses on the remaining mail items (or possibly those documents extracted from these articles) to identify the addressees and, being recognized, they place the mail items (or documents previously extracted from these articles for identification) in the lockers (for example the locker 4A). a storage unit 4 (single-sided in the example shown) corresponding to each of these recipients.

According to the invention, the reading of the mail items is performed by an optical reading terminal 5 comprising document input means 5A, optoelectronic reading and recognition means 50 and output means of the recognized documents 5B. The document entry means may comprise an accumulation bin to allow the processing of a stack of mail items, preferably of different formats, for example the formats known in Europe as C4 references (229 * 324 mm). , C5 (162 * 229 mm), C6 (114 * 162 mm) or C6 / 5 (114 * 229 mm) and in the USA under the references # 13 (254 * 330 mm), # 10 (105 * 241 mm), # 9 (98 * 225mm), # 6 ½ (152 * 229mm) and "Check" (92 * 219mm). The reading and recognition means conventionally comprise material scanning means and software means. The material means are arranged in such a way that they allow this digitization regardless of the arrangement of the article of mail, that is to say that the envelope is presented horizontally or vertically, on one or the other face . The software means conventionally comprise an OCR character recognition software (by unitary character or by integer word). According to a preferred feature of the invention, this software also includes an additional function for recognizing handwritten characters.

Recognition may relate to any predetermined type of data that may directly or indirectly inform the recipient who may be a specifically named person or a department, a department or an office of the company or the administration to which this article is addressed. mail. This data, in addition to the actual recipient (name or service) may relate to other information such as: the mention of the sender present in the area reserved for this purpose on the mail piece or appearing in the logo ( slogan) of the postal imprint, a serial number or franking machine authentication (if an imprint made by such a machine), or a particular configuration of the mail item (envelope shape, stamp type, type of font, position of the writing or printing areas of the postal stamp, etc.).

In the case of processing envelopes-responses, it may be specific pre-printed codes on these envelopes and in the case of internal mail, the number (identification number) of an employee. In the case of sorting outbound mail (ie from the company to the postal administration), the analyzed data are those relating to the recipient's territorial area, postal code or nature. from this recipient to select a desired franking mode (normal, slow, etc.).

Recognition of the recipient of the mail item through the identified data allows to assign to this article a unique identification number corresponding to a locker and only one of the storage cabinet 4. According to the invention, each locker is provided with indicating means (for example 40A) mounted on this piece of furniture by removable fixing means (for example 400A) and operable from the optical reading terminal 5. These indication means can be of the visual type (for example for example, one or more light-emitting diodes or a liquid-crystal light panel) or a buzzer, and the fixing means may comprise a self-adhesive part which must be able to be removed several times (for example a peelable-type part or a fastener). known as VELCRO) or they may be simply formed of a clip or a clip, as illustrated in Figure 1 by the reference 400R.

The indication means are of the self-powered type, for example by lithium battery (this type of battery having a long life of the order of three to five years) or preferably from known autonomous power supply means. in itself like photovoltaic cells or inductive elements (in the latter two cases no maintenance is no longer necessary). To facilitate the reception of light by the photovoltaic cells, it may be advisable to adopt high-power discharge lamps providing sufficient lighting in the sorting room. Similarly, the reception of the waves emitted by the inductive elements can be improved by the installation of the emission system of these waves in the ceiling of the sorting room.

The actuation of the indication means 40 is performed remotely from the optical reading terminal 5 which also provides this activation function through contactless transmission means constituted for example by optoelectronic connection means, for example infrared , or else by radio link means.

Preferably, there is provided a special rack to receive all mail items could not be identified optically. This rack is advantageously a simple storage basket 6 can also be provided with indication means 6A (and therefore also having a unique identification number) and placed for example on a work table 7 receiving the optical reading terminal 5 Thus, when the automatic sorting is finished, the operator can take the mail items from this basket (it is essentially mail without addressee or whose handwriting could not be decrypted) and then manually sorting by arranging these mail items one by one in the various appropriate lockers, possibly after opening these mail items, without however benefiting from the assistance of the assistance device.

Also, in an advantageous embodiment, the terminal 5 is further provided with a device 8 optical reading and recognition of A4 format documents (flatbed scanner type) to ensure a scanning of all or part of the page of custody of the document included in the article of mail not initially recognized and thus allow, after analysis of its contents, a determination of the recipient of this mail. This analysis (using an expert system and a database) can relate to the name or logo of the sender but also to key words of the document such as: complaint, order, check, invoice etc. which, failing recognition of a recipient name, identify at least one recipient service. Preferably, this reading and recognition device comprises software recognition means common to the recognition means of the mail items 50. It may be interesting to note that this embodiment also has the advantage of also allowing direct sorting. internal mail envelopes (perforated envelopes with boxes essentially in A4 format). Similarly, in a second advantageous variant of the invention, the terminal 5 further comprises voice recognition means that allow the operator, using a microphone 9, to read aloud, on the envelope or on the document, directly the recipient of the mail piece or other information indirectly allowing its identification and thus cause a display of the corresponding indicator bin (for example 40A). These two embodiments of the invention are particularly interesting for a person who is not the usual operator (for example a substitute, temporary, trainee) and has not yet accurately stored the locations of the different lockers. The control and control of the various elements constituting the terminal 5 are made from a keyboard 10 and a display screen 11 incorporated in this terminal. This command and this control can also be performed remotely by a personal computer type 12 connected to the terminal 5 optionally provided with a printer (not shown). In an embodiment variant not shown, the A4 optical document reader 8 can also be disposed independently of the terminal 5 and connected directly to the computer 12.

Note that the manual sort assistance device may further comprise a module 13 for opening mail items placed at the output of the optical reading terminal to ensure selective opening of these mail items based on information recognized by the optical reader terminal 5. For example, mail items bearing the words "confidential", "strictly personal" or addressed to specific persons (president, general managers, general secretary, etc.) must not provoke an activation of this module.

FIGS. 2a and 2b illustrate two exemplary types of organization conceivable for sorting mail by means of the assistance device according to the invention in a room reserved for this purpose within a company. In FIG. 2A (in top view), sorting of the mail is ensured by four persons 1, by means of two terminals 5 and 5 ', each person being responsible for tracking, for example, 20 lockers (the bins being arranged at two two-sided storage units 4). As before, each rack is provided with a specific indicator which is lit when the terminal 5 or 5 'delivers an article of mail to be deposited in the corresponding bin (this ignition resulting in the displacement of the operator in charge of this rack) . In Figure 2B (in front view), the storage cabinet 4 is a large piece of furniture, for example 18 * 4 boxes, which is served by three operators. Each bin has a particular indicator composed of three indicator lights of different colors (for example blue, yellow, red), each indicator corresponding to one of the three operators. Preferably, this indicator further comprises a liquid crystal light panel which allows the display of numbers of two digits (00 to 99), which allows batch processing. Indeed, the terminal 5 is arranged to deliver mail items in successive batches of predetermined size (for example twenty items). Thus, the terminal can proceed to the reading and recognition of mail items one by one and once the treated batch cause the lighting of one of the lights (thus designating a particular operator) and the display on the light panel of output positions in the batch (for example from 1 for the above mail item to 20 for the one below), the withdrawal of the terminal from the batch processed by the operator concerned resulting in the processing of the next batch for another operator. When several mail items of a given batch must be deposited in the same bin, it can be expected that the light panel displays the different positions successively. Of course, if the number of mail items that can compose a lot is not important (in practice equal to or less than 10), the light panel can be replaced by a set of light-emitting diodes.

The internal architectures of the optical reading terminal and the means of indicating the bins are schematically illustrated respectively in FIGS. 3 and 4.

The terminal is organized around means 50 for reading and recognizing the destination of the mail items. This recognition is performed with respect to a set of data prerecorded in a memory 52 of this terminal to which are compared by processing means 54 the information recognized on the mail item (for example the recipient, the department, the department, the office, the sender, the serial number, etc.). Means 56 for transmitting a bin identification code corresponding to the identified recipient are further provided to ensure remote display of the indication means of the selected bin. Optionally, means 58 for opening the mail items are available at the output of the terminal and are controlled so that they are inhibited when the identification code of the corresponding mail item is that of one of the recipients predetermined values for which such an opening is not permitted. When the device according to the invention is organized around a personal computer, it is the latter that includes the memory data and the processing means necessary for determining the recipient. It can be classically the company's diary file which lists all the staff and services of this company. In this case, it is possible to manage an additional file of people who left the company to assign their mail to a replacement. A management of the returned mails to the sender known as NPAI (Does not live at the Address Indicated) and folds of type inserts with checked boxes is also possible. The set of these files then makes it possible to establish various statistics for internal management purposes within the company.

The indication means 40 comprise means 42 for receiving the lock identification code transmitted by the terminal 5, the nature of which obviously depends on the type of transmission used (optical, for example infrared, or radioelectric), comparison means 44 the code received with a specific internal code 45 stored in the indication means and means 46 for visual or audible display of the result of this comparison. It may be noted that the locker identification code may be present at the means of indication in a memory or be available in a wired form. More simply, in order to allow frequent changes of configuration, this code can also be delivered by a coding wheel. Finally, power supply means 48 provide an autonomous power supply for all the circuits of the indication means.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a simplified organization of the data memory 52. This memory contains the names of the different people who may be mail recipients in the company. Each of these names is associated with a name of service or department to which this person is attached, a code or locker identification number, and possibly specific mentions specifying whether the corresponding mail is confidential or personal and can not be opened. (confidential) or if the person in question is responsible for a given service to receive non-registered letters. When the recognition also relates to data other than the recipient itself (name or service), this memory 52 then comprises a zone associated with each service and in which are mentioned one or more data that may be recognized as being related to this service. service. This is the name of the sender such as ADECCO or MANPOWER (two temporary employment companies) which may be attached to the personnel department, a particular logo of a supplier who may be attached to the purchasing department, or 'a specific number of franking machine which corresponds to a specific firm in regular contact with the department of studies, of a particular model of foreign stamp which can be attached to the export service.

Of course, the contents of the memory must be able to be modified by the operator to add or remove new recipients of mail, complete the identifiable data or to change the lock assignments. The terminal 5 or the computer 12 will advantageously be provided with a user-friendly interface of the man / machine type from which the configuration of the sorting room can be defined and modified simply (number of operators, lockers, number of batch items, etc.) and from which the aforementioned memory changes can be executed.

The operation of the device according to the invention is now described with reference to FIG. 6. Firstly, in a first step 100, the operator introduces a first mail item into the terminal (he can also place a stack of articles at the entrance of the terminal). This article is then transported to the optical reading means of this terminal (conventionally a camera equipped with a CCD sensor for example) which proceeds in a step 102 to its digitization: In a next step 104, a recognition is carried out different characters carried in the different written areas of this mail item including the address area by comparing the scanned data with the data in memory to identify directly or indirectly the name of the recipient, department or department. It may be noted here that this character recognition can also be performed following a voice reading of the relevant data found on the mail item (step 106). The three steps 100, 102, 106 can of course be applied in the same way to the document itself whose reading can be done optically (by the device 8) or vocally. Depending on the identification carried out, either the identification code of the recognized recipient's locker identification code is transmitted (step 108), or the issuance of the consignee identification code of the addressee responsible within a service. or a department of receiving the mail, when the name of the recipient is not mentioned in its own (step 110), is finally the issuance of the identification code of the bin corresponding to manual sorting, when n It is not possible to assign a recipient to this mail item (step 112). The identification code is issued to the attention of all the traps that receive it at the same time in a step 114. In a step following 116, each means of indication of a rack then makes a comparison of this code with its own internal identification code. If this comparison proves to be positive (yes response to the test in step 118), the indicating means concerned activates its display means in a final step 120, the indication means of the other bins obviously remaining inactive. The display duration can be predetermined (discharge time of a capacitor for example) or depend on the sorting rate.

Of course, the present invention can not be limited to the embodiments described above. In particular, it is possible in small businesses to replace the storage unit with several storage baskets (for example a dozen) aligned side by side in front of the operator on a worktable. It will be noted that the present invention makes it possible to adapt very simply to the various existing sorting methods, whether or not the mail is pre-sorted and that they are associated with one or more storage units. Thus, the pre-sorting of the confidential folds currently performed most often manually to avoid any unwanted opening can be eliminated with the present invention and integrated with the current sort. Indeed, the recognition for example of the mention "confidential" or "strictly personal" will inhibit the operation of the means of opening the mail items.

Claims (23)

1. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting of articles of mail performed by one or more operators (1) having at their disposition storage elements or pigeonholes (4) corresponding to determined addressees, the articles of mail each including at least one document, the apparatus comprising:

   · hardware scanning means (5, 8; 50) for reading articles of mail of different formats and OCR type or handwritten character recognition software means in order to identify on an article of mail (3) or on the document extracted from said article, at least one data item suitable for giving direct or indirect information about the addressee of the article;

   · comparator means (5, 12; 54) for comparing said identified data item with a plurality of previously stored predetermined data items (5, 12; 52);

   · allocation means (5, 12) for allocating a unique identity code to the recognized data item corresponding to a determined storage element (4A) allocated to a particular addressee; and

   · contactless transmission means (5; 58) for transmitting said identity codes to all of the storage elements (4);

   each of said storage elements being provided with indicator means (40A) mounted on removable fixing means (400A, 400R) and responding selectively to said identity code.
2. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said identifiable data item is at least one of the following data items: the name or identity number of the addressee of the article of mail, the service or the department of the business to which said article of mail is addressed, the destination post code of an article of mail, the territorial zone or the kind of addressee, the name of the sender, the serial number or authentication number of the postage meter that franked the article of mail, the particular configuration of the article of mail (envelope shape, stamp shape, type of character font, positions of zones of writing or printing in the postage imprint).
3. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 2, characterised in that the character recognition software means enable mail that has been returned to sender to be handled, and also enables mail having crossed-out name boxes to be handled.
4. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said hardware scanning means are organized so that reading can be performed horizontally or vertically.
5. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said hardware scanning means are organized so that reading can be performed on either face of the article of mail.
6. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 4 or claim 5, characterised in that said reading is performed on formats C4, C5, C6, or C6/5.
7. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 4, characterised in that said hardware scanning means further enable documents in A4 format extracted from articles of mail to be read.
8. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 7, characterised in that said hardware scanning means enabling A4 format to be read are constituted by a flat bed scanner.
9. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 7, characterised in that the data identifiable by the A4 format hardware scanning means further comprise key words such as "complaint", "order", "check", "invoice", etc.
10. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that the said contactless transmission means include optoelectronic link means, e.g. operating in the infrared.
11. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said contactless transmission means comprise radio link means.
12. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said indicator means comprise visual or audible indicator means having their own power supplies.
13. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 12, characterised in that said visual indicator means comprise at least one light indicator.
14. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 12, characterised in that said visual indicator means comprise a display panel for displaying a number for batch processing of articles of mail.
15. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 14, characterised in that said display panel is organized so that it is capable of displaying a plurality of numbers in succession, each corresponding to a determined position of an article of mail in the batch being processed.
16. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 12, characterised in that the power supplies of said indicator means are provided by photocells.
17. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 12, characterised in that the power supplies of said indicator means are provided via inductive elements.
18. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 12, characterised in that the power supplies of said indicator means are provided by long operating lifetime batteries, e.g. by lithium cells.
19. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said removable fixing means comprise clamp or clip type elements.
20. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that said removable fixing means comprise self-adhesive portions that can be removed several times.
21. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that it further includes voice recognition means (9, 50) enabling articles of mail or documents that have not been identified by the character recognition software means to be identified.
22. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, characterised in that all of the articles of mail or the documents that are not identified by the character recognition software means are given the same identity code corresponding to the same storage element (6).
23. Apparatus for providing assistance in manual sorting according to claim 1, further comprising opening means for opening articles of mail (13, 58), which means are disposed at the output of the hardware scanning means, the apparatus being characterised in that said opening means are inhibited when the identity code of the corresponding article of mail is a code allocated to a predetermined addressee for whom such opening is not authorized.

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