Offline exception processing of mail
AssigneeSiemens Industry, Inc.
InventorMichael Carpenter
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Mail processing systems and methods. A method includes scanning a plurality of mail pieces in a first processing step to produce mail piece images. The method includes producing a template based on a plurality of the mail piece images and associating a plurality of mail pieces with the template, the associated plurality of mail pieces forming a mail set. The method includes identifying quality-control problems associated with the mail set, separating the mail set from other mail during a second processing step, and separately processing the mail set from the other mail.
Claims16
A method, comprising:
- scanning a plurality of mail pieces in a first processing step, by mail processing equipment, to produce mail piece images;
- creating a mail piece fingerprint corresponding to each mail piece image, wherein each mail piece fingerprint uniquely identifies the corresponding mail piece based on graphical features of the corresponding mail piece including text blocks, colors, shapes, locations, pictures, or other visually distinctive items, without applying any identifier to the mail piece;
- producing a template based on a plurality of the mail piece images;
- associating a plurality of mail pieces with the template, the associated plurality of mail pieces forming a mail set;
- identifying quality-control problems associated with the mail set;
- separating the mail set from other mail during a second processing step by using the mail piece fingerprints to identify mail pieces that are part of the mail set;
- and
- separately processing the mail set from the other mail.
A mail processing system, comprising:
- at least one processor;
- an accessible memory;
- and
- mail processing equipment, the mail processing system configured to
- scan a plurality of mail pieces in a first processing step, by mail processing equipment, to produce mail piece images;
- create a mail piece fingerprint corresponding to each mail piece image, wherein each mail piece fingerprint uniquely identifies the corresponding mail piece based on graphical features of the corresponding mail piece including text blocks, colors, shapes, locations, pictures, or other visually distinctive items, without applying any identifier to the mail piece;
- produce a template based on a plurality of the mail piece images;
- associate a plurality of mail pieces with the template, the associated plurality of mail pieces forming a mail set;
- identify quality-control problems associated with the mail set;
- separate the mail set from other mail during a second processing step by using the mail piece fingerprints to identify mail pieces that are part of the mail set;
- and
- separately process the mail set from the other mail.
A non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions stored thereon executable by one or more processors to:
- scan a plurality of mail pieces in a first processing stepto produce mail piece images;
- create a mail piece fingerprint corresponding to each mail piece image, wherein each mail piece fingerprint uniquely identifies the corresponding mail piece based on graphical features of the corresponding mail piece including text blocks, colors, shapes, locations, pictures, or other visually distinctive items, without applying any identifier to the mail piece;
- produce a template based on a plurality of the mail piece images;
- associate a plurality of mail pieces with the template, the associated plurality of mail pieces forming a mail set;
- identify quality-control problems associated with the mail set;
- separate the mail set from other mail during a second processing step by using the mail piece fingerprints to identify mail pieces that are part of the mail set;
- and
- separately process the mail set from the other mail.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.