The U. S. Postal Services new mail-sorting machine is coming to San Diego California debuting in May 2011. The size of this machine is about the size of 14 double Decker buses and it fast.
It can do the job of 26 humans working at full bore. Unlike its human counterpart -it can work non-stop 17 hour shifts and won't ever get a paper cut or carpal tunnel syndrome. It's part of a 1.5 billion investment expected to shave hours off the processing time for millions of pieces of mail every day and save the financially ailing Postal service billions of dollars.
The machine is called Flats Sequencing System. It sorts flats, a type of mail that includes magazines advertisements, newspaper, envelops and the like.
The postal service is spreading 100 of them among 47 postal distribution center nationwide .
The average postal experience postal worker could sort approximately 480 flats of mail an hour. A Flats Sequencing System machine can sort 12,500 flats an hour about four a second.
The machine rapidly reads bar codes, printed words and even handwriting.
If words are smudge or the handwriting too sloppy for its electronic eye to decipher it snaps a photo of the mail and emails it to a human in Sal Lake City who might have better luck.
The sequencing machine puts all of the flats in the precise order they'll be delivered so a carrier can just grab them from a tub and slip them into your mailbox.
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