EP1272287B2 - Suppression of mail addressing errors using extended client codes - Google Patents

Abstract

In order to eliminate addressing errors on postal articles in a process ( 8, 10 ) of sorting, routing, and delivery performed by a postal operator on mail articles ( 3' ) handed over to the operator by a sender of mail articles constituting a client of the postal operator, respective mail article identity numbers (I) are generated for the mail articles to be processed in the sorting, routing, and delivery process, said identity numbers (I) being applied to the respective mail articles in machine readable form ( 5 ) and being recorded in an electronic file (F) in association with data (A) giving the postal addresses of the mail articles. These mail article identity numbers (I) or "extended client codes" are generated by the mail article sender and they are applied by the sender to the mail articles prior to handing them over to the postal operator. The file (F) containing the mail article identity numbers in association with the data giving postal addresses is also prepared by the sender of mail articles and is transmitted by the sender to the postal operator.

Description

The invention relates to the sorting routing and distribution of mail items in a sorting center or centers of a postal operator. In some countries, postal sorting centers allow consignors of bulk mail items, customers of the postal operator, to affix on each item of mail a bar code representative of a distribution address code obtained at from a coding of the postal address of the mail article, this address code being indicative of a mail delivery point of the mail article and known as the customer code. In a postal sorting center, during the process of sorting and delivering a large batch of such marked mail items, each mail item can be processed from a bar code machine reading on the item. mail. As a result, the postal sorting center saves a lot of time and, for the postal service's customer sender, a possibility of benefiting from preferential routing rates.

The address code or customer code for a mail item is conventionally generated by the sender from a machine entry of the image of the postal address of the article, followed by an optical character recognition on the captured image to retrieve the postal address information of the mail item and an automatic address information processing to generate the address code. This processing typically exploits a file in which reference address information is mapped to reference address codes provided by the postal operator. It has been found that mailers of bulk mail items do not always have up-to-date reference address information files in correspondence with the respective reference address codes. The result is therefore for the postal sorting center errors addressing the mail items. This situation is particularly costly for a postal operator since the addressing error leads the postal sorting center to recover the misdirected mail article only after the sorting and distribution sorting process and to send it back to the sender or to failure to process it manually by ignoring the address code generated by the sender. This type of error can affect a significant portion (up to 6 to 10%) of a batch of mail items delivered by a shipper to a postal sorting center.

The document US Patent 4992649 discloses a method of processing mail items in which the postal operator generates a mail item identification number for each mail item to be processed. These identification numbers are affixed to the corresponding mail items each in the form of a machine-readable marking and are recorded in an electronic file in correspondence with data indicative of the postal addresses of the mail items, which data may be a digital image of the mailing address of each mail item. This marking of mail items with mail item identification numbers makes it possible to eliminate the use of delay loops in which mail waiting for processing passes through video coding facilities of mail items.

The patent document EP-424 728 further discloses a method of processing mail items in which mail item identification numbers are generated by a postal operator and affixed to the corresponding mail items and are recorded in an electronic file in correspondence with the image the mailing address of mail items. On the basis of this file which can be transmitted by network from a sorting center to a sorting center of the postal operator, it is possible for the postal sorting center to calculate sorting codes first. routing corresponding to the mail items referenced in the file. On the basis of this file, a postal sorting center calculates the distribution sorting codes or address codes.

The document FR-2646364 further discloses a method of processing mail items in which mail item identification numbers are generated by a postal operator and wherein an electronic file containing such identification numbers in correspondence with data indicative of the Mailing address of mail items is transmitted by network of a postal sorting center forwarding to postal centers sorting distribution.
The generation of identification numbers of mail items by the postal operator simplifies the video coding operations that it must perform to recover errors of coding postal addresses on certain mail items. However, it does not make it possible to eliminate erroneous addressing of mail items because the sender does not always have an up-to-date mailing address database.

The object of the invention is to overcome this disadvantage.

For this purpose, the subject of the invention is a method for eliminating mailing errors of mail items. as defined by claim 1.

In this way, it is easy for the postal operator to detect the anomalies on the postal addresses generated by the sender of mail items and to return to this sender a file containing postal addresses corrected in correspondence where appropriate with identification numbers of mail items for the purpose of updating the sender's postal address database.

According to the invention, each identification number of a mail item generated by the sender, or client code said extended, comprises at least one code identifying the sender and a code identifying the postal operator which allows to ensure traceability of each article of mail marked since its manufacture by the sender until its distribution by the postal operator.

According to a particular embodiment of the method according to the invention, each identification number of a mail item is affixed to the mail piece in the form of an alphanumeric code, in two dimensions, or preferably bars. This bar code for example can be divided into two parts, one for the identification of the sender and the postal operator, the other for the identification of the mail item itself, these two parts corresponding to a unique identification number for each article. In the part of the code identifying the postal operator and the sender, an additional information field may be reserved to encode commercial or marketing data that is specific to the sender (for example the identification of an advertising campaign) .

According to the invention, the data indicative of a postal address in the file consist of alphanumeric attributes formatted in text code of the postal address. These data indicative of a postal address can still be constituted by the digital images or lines constituting the postal address, or for example by a computer file in which is recorded in ASCII mode or other content of each line of the address. These alphanumeric attributes of the postal address can be obtained, as is well known, by optical recognition from the digital image of the postal address entered by camera. But preferably, they can be loaded as a file during the preparation of the mail piece using a software tool integrated in the text processing program used to make the mail item. This software tool can be classically a postal address book management software already present in most word processing programs running on a personal computer. The file containing the data indicative of the postal address of the mail items may advantageously be organized in the form of a database with records containing predefined registration fields filled in with the corresponding postal address attributes. This software tool integrated in the word processing program for the manufacture of mail items can advantageously be adapted to automatically generate the identification numbers, for example by including an incremented counter for each new mail item made by the sender . Of course, the identification numbers could be generated after the manufacture of mail items and their enveloping without departing from the scope of the invention.

• La figure 1 représente de façon très schématique le processus de génération des numéros d'identification d'article de courrier et du fichier contenant ces numéros en correspondance avec des données d'adresse postales.
• La figure 2 montre un exemple d'article de courrier sur lequel est apposé un code à barres correspondant à un numéro d'identification d'article de courrier.

An exemplary implementation of the method according to the invention is described below and illustrated very schematically in the figures.

• The figure 1 schematically illustrates the process of generating mail item identification numbers and the file containing these numbers in correspondence with postal address data.
• The figure 2 shows an example of a mail article on which is affixed a bar code corresponding to a mail item identification number.

On the left side of the figure 1 , the process of constitution of a batch of mail items on the side of a sender of mail items in customer number of a postal operator has been represented. This sender holds a postal address file 1 which is merged with a type letter 2, for example using a word processing program running on a personal computer, to constitute a batch of mail items 3 to be made. distribute by a sorting center of the postal operator.

The batch of mail items 3 is loaded at the sender in a machine 4, which performs a digital automatic capture of the image of the postal address of each mail item and which prints on each mail item, as code client, an individual marking 5, for example in the form of a barcode, representative of a unique identifier assigned to the mail item by the sender. This identifier or extended customer code can be entirely digital or alphanumeric.

The digital image of the mailing address of each mail item is indicated by the letter A on the figure 1 and the unique identifier of each mail item is indicated by the letter I on the figure 1 . As and when the mail items in the machine 4, the machine 4 provides in an electronic file F for each mail item, the digital image A of his mailing address which is registered in correspondence with the unique identifier I of the mail item as illustrated by the symbol F (A, I) on the figure 1 . To the end of processing in the machine 4, the sender therefore retrieves a batch of mail items marked 3 'and the corresponding electronic file F (A, I). As indicated above, the identifiers I may alternatively be generated automatically by a software tool integrated in the word processing program.

The sender transmits to the sorting center of the postal operator the electronic file F (A, I) for example through a telecommunication network, which may be the Internet, or any other equivalent means and sends the batch of mail items marked 3 'in parallel to this postal sorting center. It is understood that the images A and the identifiers I may be recorded in one or more electronic files or in another data medium that can be used by a computer or the like.

On the right side of the figure 1 , the process of sorting, routing and distribution carried out in the postal sorting center has been represented. The postal sorting center normally receives from the sender the electronic file F (A, I) before receiving the batch of mail items 3 '.

Upon receipt of the electronic file F (A, I), the postal sorting center realizes in 6 on each digital image A recorded in the file F (A, I) an optical character recognition to extract postal address information and generate on the basis of up-to-date reference postal address information held by the postal operator, an address code (indicated by C on the figure 1 ) in correspondence with the identifier I of the mail article. The address code C generated by the postal sorting center corresponds in this case to an effective distribution point for the postal sorting center. This optical character recognition operation becomes unnecessary if the data A in the file F is already recorded in text mode.

On the figure 1 the address codes C generated by the postal sorting center and recorded in correspondence with the identifiers I of the mail items are represented in an electronic file F '(I, C). It is on the basis of the file F '(I, C) that the process 10 of sorting, routing and distribution of the batch of mail items 3' is carried out as soon as the latter is received by the postal sorting center. Before carrying out the sorting, routing and distribution process, each mail item is identified and located by a machine reading 8 of its individual marking 5 to obtain its identifier I and is sorted, routed and distributed in 10 on the basis of the correspondence between its identifier I and its address code C which is provided by the file F '(I, C). It is possible to affix on each item of mail another marking representative of its address code C, for example a bar code, to carry out the process of sorting, routing and distribution.

A distribution point corresponding to an address code generated at 6 can be the subject of a re-addressing request in the postal sorting center (as is the case when a mail recipient changes from address and notify his / her new address to the postal operator). If a C address code generated in the processing 6 is identified as corresponding to an address code of a mail item to be re-addressed, during the reading by machine 8 of the individual marking 5 of the mail items, a mail item to be re-addressed will be identified and located on the basis of the correspondence between its identifier I and its address code C provided by the file F '(I, C) and will be separated in 9 from the batch of articles mail. A video-coding can then be performed on this mail item to be re-addressed to validate the identity and the exact address of the recipient.

Similarly, in processing 6, if optical character recognition on a digital postal address image of a mail item can not be performed correctly, this mail item will be identified at 8 as indicated above. and separated from the batch of mail items to perform on it a video-coding.

Postal address anomalies, in particular those resulting from re-addressing, detected by the postal sorting center may, where appropriate, be communicated to the sender of bulk mails, as illustrated by the arrow F "on the figure 1 to update his own mailing address file.

As a variant, the machine 4 at the customer of the postal center processes the digital image A to extract by optical character recognition the attributes of the postal address printed on the mail piece and contained in the image A: postal code , city, street name, number in the street and load this data indicative of the mailing address in file F instead of picture A. This step of extracting the attributes of the postal address in the image A who is made at the postal center customer helps to reduce the cost of processing mail in the postal center to generate the address code C. Alternatively the file F is loaded with the postal address attributes by picking them directly from file 1 during the merge process with letter type 2 which eliminates the OCR operation. The direct collection of the postal address attributes could be advantageously realized, during the merger, by the software tool integrated in the word processing program which automatically generates the identifiers of mail items.

The figure 2 shows a 3 'mail article with an example of a bar code representative of a mail item identifier I generated by the sender of the mail item. To allow traceability of mail items, the identifier I generated for each mail item by the sender includes a code identifying the sender and the postal operator responsible for sorting the mail delivery and distribution. On the figure 2 , the barcode 5 is broken down here into two parts 5A and 5B, the part 5A corresponding to the identification of the sender and the postal operator and the part 5B corresponding to the identification specific to the article of mail .

The method according to the invention thus contributes to remove in a simple way errors addressing certain items of mail in a batch of mail items sent by a sender of bulk mail items to a postal sorting center.

Claims (3)

1. A method of eliminating addressing errors on mail articles in a process (8,10) of sorting, routing and delivery performed by a postal operator on a batch of mail articles (3') hander over to the operator by a sender of mail articles constituting a client of the postal operator, in which mail article single identity numbers (I) are generated for respective mail articles to be processed in the sorting, routing and delivery process, said identity numbers (I) being applied to the respective mail articles in a machine readable form (5) and being recorded in an electronic file (F) in association with data (A) representative of the postal addresses of mail articles, caracterized in that it comprises the steps consisting of, from the sender side,

   a) merging a file of postal addresses (1) with a form letter by using a word processing program to make said postal articles,

   b) and during the preparation of each mail article by said word processing program :

   - generating the single identity number (5) for the mail article comprising a first part (5A) with a first code identifying the sender and with a second code identifying the postal operator and a second part (5B) with a meter value, the mail article identity numbers (I) being applied to the mail articles by the sender before being handed to the postal operator and

   - recording into the electronic file F(A,I) the postal address of the mail article, extracted from said file of postal addresses (1) in the form of alphanumeric attributes formatted in a text code, in correspondance with the single identity number of the mail article, said electronic file F(A,I) made by the sender being forwarded by him to the postal operator.
2. The method of claim 1, in which if the postal operator dectects anomalies in the postal addresses generated by the sender, the postal operator delivers to said sender a file containing corrected postal addresses to enable the sender's addresses to be updated.
3. The method of any one of claims 1 to 2, in which each identity number of a mail article is applied to the mail article in the form of a bar code (5) or in the form of a two-dimensional code.

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