JPH0379540A - Postal matter transport processing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten the restoration time after the generation of troubles by installing a bypass passage for turning the postal matters in a transport passage on the upstream side from the downstream side of each part in the initial stage after restoration from a transport trouble. CONSTITUTION:In the initial stage after restoration, the postal matters on the upsream side from a jamming generation part are shifted to the downstream side once, and automatically transported to the downstream side from bypass passages 34, 35 and 36, and processed again. Therefore, the need of the affiliated work such at the manual assortment for the postal matters piled in a discharge piling part 20 after restoration or the feed to a postal matter feeding part 1 of a postal matter transporting processing device can be obviated. Further, since the postal matters on the downstream side from the clogging part are treated during the clogging time, the quantity of the postal matters to be transported in the bypass passages 34, 35 and 36 is reduced, and the time for transporting the postal matters for re-processing is shortened, and the restoration time can be shortened.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a mail transport and processing device for feeding mail, reading the addresses thereof, sorting them, and accumulating them.

(Prior Art) A conventional mail conveyance processing device includes a mail supply unit that supplies mail pieces one by one, a conveyance defect detection unit that detects the conveyance state of the mail pieces, and a failure detection unit that detects the conveyance status of the mail pieces. There is one in which a reading unit that reads the information read by the reading unit and a sorting and stacking unit that sorts and stacks the mail based on the reading result of the reading unit are arranged in series on one conveyance path. All of the above-mentioned parts are simultaneously driven by one drive system, and if a failure occurs in one part of each part due to a mail jam, etc., secondary failures may occur to other parts due to this damage. All parts are designed to stop to prevent this from happening.

In this way, when some failures are recovered after all parts are stopped, the mail items stagnant on the conveyance path of the mail conveyance processing device are temporarily accumulated in the conveyance stacking section and the conveyance path is emptied, and then normal operation is resumed. Processing is being restarted. The mail items accumulated in the exclusion stack are sorted manually or by a device.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) However, in the conventional mail conveyance processing apparatus, all of the sections are driven by one drive system, so a failure in one of the sections causes all sections to stop.

Therefore, the following drawbacks arise.

As described above, since normal processing is performed after mails on the conveyance path are discharged during recovery, there is a drawback that the recovery time is lengthened by this discharge time.

Furthermore, the mail items that were being processed in each section before the stoppage are discharged to the removal and accumulation section when the system is restored and must be processed redundantly, resulting in a reduction in processing efficiency.

Furthermore, it is necessary to sort the mail items accumulated in the removal stacking section manually or by a device, which has the drawback of increasing the amount of additional work involved in the restoration work.6 It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks. This feature not only shortens the recovery time after a failure occurs, but also eliminates redundant processing. While it is possible to improve the processing efficiency of Iy materials,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a mail transport processing device that can minimize secondary work incidental to restoration work.

(Means for Solving the Problem) The above problem consists of a mail supply unit that supplies mail pieces one by one, and a mail supply unit that supplies mail pieces one by one. a conveyance failure detection unit that detects the conveyance state of the item; a reading unit that reads information displayed on the mail piece;
A mail system in which a sorting/accumulating section that sorts and accumulates the mail items based on the reading results of the reading section is arranged in series on one conveyance path! In the IIJ conveyance processing device, there is a drive section that is provided corresponding to each of the above sections and independently drives the conveyance of the mail, and a drive section that is installed downstream of the conveyance failure section when a conveyance failure occurs between the abovementioned sections. A control unit that generates a drive m-continuation signal to the drive unit corresponding to each part on the side and a drive floating signal to the drive unit corresponding to each part upstream from the conveyance failure part; This problem can be solved by providing a bypass path from the downstream side to the upstream side of each section to return the mail items on the upstream conveyance path.

(Function) According to the present invention, when a conveyance failure occurs in one of the sections, such as a mail jam, the control section continues to drive the drive section corresponding to each section on the downstream side by the jammed section. At the same time, the driving of the drive sections corresponding to the sections upstream of the clogged section is stopped. Therefore, even if a jam occurs, for example, the mail downstream of the jammed section will be processed normally in each section and will be sorted and stacked, for example, in the sorting and stacking section. In this way, normal W1 performance is exhibited in each section on the downstream side, so that there is no need to reprocess lower A size mail after recovery, increasing processing efficiency.

Further, according to the present invention, in the initial stage after recovery, the mail items upstream from the jammed area are once transferred to the downstream side, and then automatically transferred to the downstream side from the bypass path, and 7 reprocessing is performed. This eliminates the need for incidental operations such as manually sorting the mail accumulated in the removal stacking section after restoration and feeding the mail to the mail supply section of the mail transport processing device, which is required in the past. Moreover, as mentioned above, the mail items downstream from the jammed area have already been processed during the jam time, so the number of mail items to be transported through the bypass path is reduced, and the number of mail items for reprocessing is reduced. The transportation time is shortened, which in turn leads to a shortening of the recovery time.

(Example) An example of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing the mail transport processing apparatus of this embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, the mail conveyance processing apparatus of this embodiment includes a mail supply section 1 that supplies mail one by one, a conveyance failure detection section 2 that detects the conveyance state of the mail, and a mail conveyance processing apparatus that supplies the mail one by one. It is equipped with a reading section 3 that reads information displayed on the mail, and a sorting and stacking section 5 that sorts and stacks the mail based on the reading result of the reading section. The temporary collection and supply section 4 is provided for collecting and re-transporting defective mail items discharged from the mailing machine 2 to the transport defect detection section 2 to be transported later.

Next, the structure and function of each of the above-mentioned parts will be sequentially explained.

The mail supply unit 1 includes a mail stacking unit 12 and a mail sending unit 13. :& stacked mail 1
1 is supplied one by one to the conveyance defect detection section 2 through the transfer route 101.

The conveyance defect detection section 2 includes a length detector 14 and an exclusion route 31.
It detects the length of the mail to be transported and the spacing between the mail, and supplies the mail that is determined to be within a predetermined size range to the reading section 3. Mail items that are determined to be outside the pre-specified size range (for example, abnormally long mail items are often sent in two pieces) are discharged to the temporary collection supply section 4 through the rejection route 31. .

The reading unit 3 includes a positioner 15 and a scanner 16. The alignment device 15 aligns and sews the floating mail before feeding it to the scanner 16. The scanner 16 scans the mail, reads information such as characters, symbols, barcodes, etc. written on the mail, and converts it into predetermined classification information. The mail that has passed through the scanner 16 is supplied to the sorting and collecting section 5 through the conveyance path 102.

The above-mentioned collecting and supplying section 4 includes a mail collecting section 17, a forwarding section 18, and a transfer route 32 or 33, and collects and collects mails supplied from the transport defect detection section 2 through the rejection route 31. The postal items are temporarily accumulated in the stacking section 17 and then transferred one by one by the sending section 18 to the reading section 3 through the transfer route 32 or supplied to the conveyance defect detection section 2 via the transfer route 33.

The sectional accumulation section 5 includes a plurality of branch sections 19, a plurality of accumulation sections 20, and an exclusion route 34 as a bypass path of the present invention.
．． 35 or 36, identifies the sorting information added to the mail pieces from the reading section 3, and branches the mail pieces to which sorting information that matches the sorting information given to each of the plurality of stacking sections is added. It is accumulated in the corresponding accumulation section 20 through the section 19 .

Further, mail pieces to which mismatched sorting information has been added are transferred to the reading unit 3 through the rejection route 34 or 35, or are supplied again to the conveyance failure detection unit 2 through the rejection route 36.

The operation when one of the processing units or modules becomes clogged with mail and becomes inoperable will be explained.

In other words, the expected acceptance from the perspective of the module (upstream side)
The module located at the module stops operating, and the module located on the sending port side (downstream) from the module continues to operate, and the mail is conveyed to the sorting and accumulating section 35 through each section. It is processed and stops operating sequentially.

Then, during recovery, the mail items that are in the module that is expected to be received from the module are simply taken out from the module where the mail items are jammed. It is normally processed through exclusion route 34, 35 or 36.

Note that when normal processing returns, the mail supply unit 1 transfers the mail from the sending unit 13 and the mail from the transfer route 32, 33, or the removal route 34, 35, or 36 to the transfer route 1.02. IIJ is controlled to avoid duplication.

In this embodiment, as described above, the case where mail is jammed is dealt with, so even if one processing section stops operating due to jammed mail, the work range of the required personnel is reduced to one.
At the same time, it eliminates the manual sorting of removed mail that was required after recovery, which is considerably reduced compared to conventional technology, and the recovery time is extremely shortened. Become.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, by using the mail conveyance processing device of the present invention, it is possible to shorten the recovery time after a failure occurs, and also eliminate redundant processing and improve mail processing efficiency. While the recovery work can be improved, the secondary work incidental to the restoration work can be minimized.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall horizontal diagram showing a mail transport processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1... Mail supply section, 2... Transport defect detection section, 3.
. . . Reading section, 4 . . . -time accumulation supply section, 5 .

Claims (1)

[Claims] a mail supply unit that supplies mail pieces one by one, a conveyance failure detection unit that detects the conveyance state of the mail piece, a reading unit that reads information displayed on the mail piece, and a reading result by the reading unit. In a mail conveyance processing apparatus, a sorting and accumulating section for sorting and accumulating the mail based on the above is arranged in series on one conveyance path, and the mail conveyance processing apparatus is provided corresponding to each of the sections and independently of the above. A drive section that drives the conveyance of the mail, and when a conveyance failure occurs in one of the above-mentioned sections, generates a driving continuation signal to the drive section corresponding to each section downstream from the conveyance failure section, and from the conveyance failure section. A control unit that issues a drive stop signal to the drive unit corresponding to each unit on the upstream side, and a bypass that returns the mail on the upstream conveyance path from the downstream side of each unit to the upstream side in the initial stage after recovery from a conveyance failure. 1. A mail conveyance processing device comprising a path.