Reading Technologies

To ensure the greatest amount of automated mail, ID Mail offers an array of reading technologies to meet the recognition challenges faced by the Dispatcher across its wide assortment of applications. To maximize processing efficiency across these situations, the Dispatcher can be configured with any of the following combinations of reading systems:

• Multi-line Optical Character Recognition (MLOCR) reader
• MLOCR plus Local Video Encoding (LVE)
• MLOCR plus Secondary Recognition System (SRS)
• MLOCR, Local Video Encoding and Secondary Recognition System

The MLOCR reader configuration on each Dispatcher includes an 8" grayscale camera with automated address block recognition, image digitizer, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) package, database and database lookup engine. The supplied database and lookup engine are tailored to the application but generally fall under one of the following:

• USPS CASS Database and Directory Retrieval System for USPS outgoing
• Customer database and INC.ware for corporate or campus incoming mail
• International database and WORLD.ware for international processing
• In-country address database and INC.ware for private courier mail

Handprint Recognition

When handprint is encountered, LVE, SRS or both can be added to the MLOCR to increase the number of coded, and hence, automated items. With LVE, the images for uncoded items are sent from the Dispatcher to a workstation where the address is hand-keyed and the lookup result is returned. Rather than hand-keying, SRS uses a second recognition engine to determine the address characters for uncoded items before returning the lookup result to the Dispatcher. In either case, during a subsequent pass of the mail the Dispatcher reads the printed piece identifier and prints the corresponding lookup result, such as a USPS barcode or mailstop number. Additional recognition attempts with LVE or SRS increases the number of recognized items and the amount of automatically processed mail. A typical configuration employs SRS to recognize uncoded items from the Dispatcher with unrecognized items from the SRS subsequently passed to LVE.

Features and Benefits

• Recognize the greatest number of addresses for maximized automation
• Increase USPS discounts with MLOCR and LVE
• Combine MLOCR and LVE to decrease labor expense for corporate, campus and international mail
• Provides the greatest reading flexibility in the mail processing industry