EP1007230A1 - Method for coding mailing items - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for coding mailing items by means of applied readable code signs. In order to enable also umambiguous identification of short mailing items while maintaining code sign quantity and distances, the surface available for code application, especially the length of the incoming mailing item, is measured and an unambiguous code with a number of signs adapted accordingly to the surface available is subsequently applied. In order to check that an identification code (ID code) is umambiguous a statistic is provided with regard to the frequency of various lengths of previously processed mailing item available for the ID code affecting the number of signs in the ID code. ID codes with a reduced number of signs, each of which have been determined and adapted to the lengths available for the ID code are applied when, over a fixed period of time, the number of statistically determined mailing items of the selected length range is smaller or equal to the number of mailing items which can be distinguished by the shortened ID-code.

Description

 Processes for coding shipments

description

The invention relates to a method for coding mail items by means of readable code characters applied

In the automatic processing of mail items today

Information applied by the machine to the shipment This can be done by

Print a bar code (or other code) or by printing plain text

The printed information can

Contain destination information, that is information about the consignee, which is used, for example, for sorting,

• contain an identification of the consignment so that it can be recognized later. Such identification is often referred to as an identification code (ID code) and is required, for example, for offline processing

• Contain information about the sender

• Contain statistical or other information

Combinations of two or more of the above are also customary

Information types To reduce the risk of reading errors, additional redundant information is often applied. Printing and reading technology should be as simple and cheap as possible, and reading reliability as high as possible

Using bar codes is the simplest and relatively secure today

Method of single-line printing of a fluorescent bar / no-bar code with a bar spacing of e.g. 1.5 mm

The coding and the number and spacing of characters have so far been determined in such a way that the codes, in particular identification codes, for the most common items with a larger standard size are clear and fill the space available for them as far as possible

Are there also consignments of shorter length than the consignments?

Standard lengths, it can happen that if the agreed

Code spacing the space available for the ID code is no longer sufficient

A reduction in the code characters and spacing has made the

Reading and printing technology as well as a reduction in reading security The invention specified in claim 1 is therefore based on the problem of uniquely encoding mail items with different sizes while maintaining the code character size and spacing selected for large mail items

By determining the area of the incoming mail items available to apply the code and by selecting and then applying a unique code with a number of characters adapted to the respective determined area for the coding, it is possible to maintain the original character size and character spacing despite smaller items Various methods are possible to determine the size available for coding. For example, when scanning the surface of the item at the agreed location, the unprinted area and its size are determined. In many cases, it is sufficient to determine the length, or simply measure the length of the item and around a fixed amount reduced According to claim 2, it is advantageous to reduce existing redundancy information to reduce the number of digits in an ID code number of times, the uniqueness of the ID code is checked by making a statistic about the frequency of different lengths of previously processed items available for the ID code, which have an impact on the number of characters to be applied. The uniqueness is given, if for the one under consideration Period of time with which the number of ID codes adjusted to the length can be clearly differentiated

The invention is explained below using exemplary embodiments

Example 1 for shortening ID codes

A 10-digit decimal number in plain text is to be printed as a clear consignment identifier, to correspond to 100 million consignments per day over a period of 100

Distinguishing days clearly It is known from statistical surveys that 3% of the items are too short to contain 10 digits, but long enough to be printed with 9 digits

The supply of 10 ¹⁰ distinguishable strings does not only contain 10 characters

Numbers, but also shorter ones, namely

10 ⁹ nine-digit

+10 ⁸ eight-digit

+

Strings (a leading zero does not have to be printed in the tens system) This means that up to 11.1% of the items can be provided with labels shorter than 10 digits. This percentage is greater than 3%, which means that all items can be clearly identified without loss of uniqueness and without other disadvantages

Example 2 for shortening ID codes

The information to be printed is to be printed in bar / no-bar technology and consists of 40-bit drawing information and 40-bit ID code

With the agreement that a printed bar means a binary "one" and an omitted bar means a binary "zero", the available stock contains

2 ⁴⁰ strings

2 ³⁹ episodes of the Lange 39 bars,

2 ³⁸ sequences of length 38 bars, etc

Can in the short program eg only 75 instead of 80 bar applied so are still more than 3% of the strings ^{(2 35/2 40 = 0.031} ) for this case at your disposal

Example 3 for shortening any code provided with redundancy

To reduce errors, redundancy characters are added to the information to be printed.There are three methods available.The total amount of printable character strings is made up of three subsets of character strings of different lengths. Depending on the measured mail item length, a character string is selected from the subset available on the standing space is just printable

Example 4 for truncation through different types of coding

Usually, the code to be applied should represent information available as a decimal number. It is advantageous if the code can be easily deciphered by humans using a small template. When using bar-no-bar technology, it is advisable to use a group to place every decimal number of 4 bars, which can then be easily deciphered using a 10-line table. When using 4-state bar technology, each decimal place can be represented by two bars. A 3-digit decimal number therefore requires 3 ^* 4 = 12 bars in bar-no-bar Technology or 3 * 2 = 6 bars in 4-state technology The number of bars and thus the required print length on the item can be reduced by moving to binary coding at the expense of being easy to decipher for humans. In binary representation, 10 is sufficient Bars in bar-no-bar technology or 5 bars in 4-state bar technology to represent every 3-digit decimal number, because 2 ¹⁰ > 1000 and 4 ⁵ > 1000. The same applies if text is to be coded instead of decimal numbers.

Claims

claims 1. Procedure for coding of consignments, consisting of the following steps: a) determining the area available for applying the codes on the incoming mail items, b) applying a unique code with a number of characters adapted to the respectively determined area available for coding. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein a number of redundancy characters contained in the code is adapted to the available area. 3. The method of claim 1, in which to check the uniqueness of a selected identification code (ID code), a statistic about the frequency of different lengths available for the ID code previously processed in a fixed period of mail, the effects on the to be applied Have ID code characters, is then carried out to determine whether for the specified period of time with the number of items adapted to the length of the ID code characters, all the consignments can be clearly distinguished.