System and method for providing document accumulation sets to an inserter system

A method for supplying document accumulation sets to an inserter system comprising the steps of:

• supplying sheets to a sheet stacking device, which includes the steps of:
• supplying a paper web having at least two portions in side-by-side relationship;
• merging the at least two portions of the web from side-by-side relationship to a substantially upper-lower relationship;
• and
• separating the upper-lower relationship paper web into individual sheets disposed atop one another;
• stacking the sheets in a stacking pile;
• feeding from the stacking pile individual sheets, which includes the step of:
• feeding from the stacking pile individual sheets wherein the individual sheets are fed in groups consisting of one or more sheets whereby each sheet in a group is in seriatim with one another and is separated from one another by a first predetermined distance;
• providing a plurality of paths connecting an entry point to and an exiting path, each path having a different path length;
• controlling the paths so as to allow each individual sheet fed from the stacking pile which is to belong to a collation set to travel a different path such that a sheet succeeding a preceding sheet of the collation set entering the entry point travels a different length path than the preceding sheet such that a collation set of a predetermined number of sheets is fed from the exiting point;
• accumulating at least one collation set to form an accumulation set;
• and
• feeding the accumulation set to the inserter system.

A system for supplying document accumulation sets to an inserter system comprising:

• a sheet supplying device operative to supply sheets;
• a sheet stacking device operative to receive the sheets from the sheet supplying device and stack the sheets into a sheet pile and subsequently feed individual sheets from the sheet pile;
• a collating device operative to receive the individual sheets from the sheet stacking device and collate a predetermined number of sheets into a collation set and subsequently feed the collation set from the sheet stacking device, said collating device further including a plurality of paths connecting an entry point to and an exiting path wherein each path has a different path length and the paths are controlled so as to allow each individual sheet fed from the stacking pile which is to belong to a collation set to travel a different path such that a sheet succeeding a preceding sheet of the collation set entering the entry point travels a different length path than the preceding sheet such that a collation set of a predetermined number of sheets is fed from the exiting point wherein each of the paths of the collating device are configured to provide at the exiting point a shingled collation set wherein the sheets belonging to a collation set are at least partial overlapping with respect to each succeeding sheet in the collation set;
• an accumulating device operative to receive at least one collation set from the collating device to provide an accumulation set consisting of the at least one collation set and feed the accumulation set to an inserter system.