Apparatus for improved sortation and delivery point processing of military mail

A method of rerouting items during shipment through a series of intermediate destinations to a final destination, which final destination is capable of movement from one geographic location to another, comprising:

• receiving federal national change of address data at a non-United States Postal Service source;
• receiving military change of address data at the non-United States Postal Service source more frequently than the federal national change of address data is received at the non-United States Postal Service source, wherein the received military change of address data contains a military addressing scheme different than an addressing scheme of the received federal national change of address data, and compiling, by a processor, the received federal national change of address data and the received military change of address data into a computer searchable military change of address database;
• scanning the items by a scanning device while at an intermediate destination to determine a final destination of each item;
• while the items are at the intermediate destination, performing a computerized check by a processor using the results of the scanning step and the compiling step to determine whether a geographic location of the final destination for each item has changed, wherein performing the computerized check further comprises accessing one or more database sets containing information for a military unit, unique delivery point information for the military unit, and a geographical location for the military unit;
• and
• if the geographic location of the final destination of an item has changed, rerouting the item so that the item is shipped from the intermediate destination to the changed geographic location of the final destination without first being shipped to a prior location of the final destination.

A method for distributing military mail wherein mail addressed to military personnel at addresses outside the United States is received through a federal postal service, delivered by the federal postal service to the military, and then distributed to recipients by the military, comprising:

• (a) determining if mail deposited to the federal postal service is addressed to a military recipient at an Outside the Continental United States (OCONUS) location, wherein OCONUS locations are associated with two or more OCONUS zones each of which has an associated military mail processing center;
• (b) delivering deposited mail addressed to a military recipient at an OCONUS location to a military mail processing center;
• (b-1) receiving federal national change of address data at the military mail processing center;
• (b-2) receiving military change of address data at the military mail processing center more frequently than the federal national change of address data is received at the military mail processing center, wherein the received military change of address data contains a military addressing scheme different than an addressing scheme of the received federal national change of address data, and compiling, by a processor, the received federal national change of address data and the received military change of address data into a computer searchable military address management system database;
• (c) sorting, by a sorting device, mail delivered to the military mail processing center using the computer searchable military address management system database and the results of the compiling, wherein the computer searchable military address management system database associates a military unit zip code with a current geographic location for a military unit;
• wherein the sort divides the mail delivered to the military mail processing center into groups including (1) mail to be redirected to the federal postal service because, according to the military address management system database, the recipient is no longer OCONUS,
• (2) mail to be redirected to a different OCONUS zone because the recipient is no longer in an OCONUS zone to which the mail was originally addressed, and
• (3) mail addressed to an OCONUS zone which does not require redirection;
• then
• (d-1) delivering the mail to be redirected to the federal postal service without first delivering it to a military mail processing center for OCONUS mail;
• (d-2) delivering the mail to be redirected to a different OCONUS zone to a military mail processing center associated with that OCONUS zone;
• (d-3) delivering mail addressed to a recipient in an OCONUS zone which mail does not require redirection to a military mail processing center associated with that OCONUS zone;
• and
• (e) distributing the mail from steps (d-1), (d-2), (d-3) to the military recipients.