India Post Automated Mail Processing System Will Work 55k Mails/Hour. Your Handwriting Never Mattere

India Post has made a big shift from manual to automated mail processing, and the machines installed by Siemens at the Delhi center will process ~10 lakh mail items every day. The #-Link-Snipped-# hopes to boost the efficiency by multi-folds with this new system. The system comprises of a Letter Sorting machine (LSM) and a Mixed Mail Sorter (MMS). These machines perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and use Video Coding System (VCS) - that reads the mail addresses at a very rapid rate. The machine even sorts the mails depending based on their destination addresses. The LSM is capable of processing about 35000 mails per hour while the MMS can do over 20,000 registered, speed post, small parcels and packets per hour. Given the speed, we think the overall cost of Rs. 42 crores is justified.
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As soon as your letter enters the machine, a high-speed camera captures a snapshot of the address written on it and then feeds it to a central server for digitisation and recognition of the characters. The OCR system picks up the PIN code from the photo and then tries to match the address written on the letter with a database of the addresses specially prepared for the system. In case the system is unable to figure out the PIN code, then it sends the photo to the video coder (human) who tries to guess it and then enters it into the system manually. The whole process takes only a few seconds.

The MMS system has a conveyer belt designed to sort any type of mail item viz. packets, parcels, postcards etc. The MMS reads the tracking code pasted on each of the items and then makes it available on the Internet for tracking.

The Automated Mail Processing Centre (AMPC) Delhi will now take care of all the earlier 12 smaller mail sorting centers. The system improves the overall efficiency of the process and makes it more reliable. The construction of the AMPC started back in 2010 with on 10,000 sq.m size plot and the built up area is about 7000 sq.m. The building is equipped with 24 hour power backup and CCTV cameras for security. Another, similar facility is being set up in Kolkata and is expected to be operational in the next few weeks.

It's good to see the Department of Posts is going the automation way. Expect to get your mails and parcels faster. We seriously recommend taking handwriting lessons, so that lesser computing power is utilised in decoding it.

Via: #-Link-Snipped-#

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