JPS6115755B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a letter and mail sorting device useful for sorting and delivering letters and mail by address.

A letter/postal sorting device reads the postal code attached to the letter/postal item, recognizes it, classifies the letter/postal item into destination areas, and bundles the letter/postal items for each destination for delivery. Attention has been paid. This device is basically constructed as shown in FIG. That is,
Letters and postal items within the standard size, which are sorted by size and thickness, are guided to a reading/discriminating section 1, where their postal codes are read and recognized. According to this recognition result, the letters and mail are divided into destinations and stacked in each sorting area (sorting box) of the sorting shelf 2. The letters and mail that have reached a predetermined stacking amount are taken out via the take-out device 3 for each destination, guided through the conveyance line 4, and bundled by the bundler 5. In this way, the letters and postal items grouped into categories are delivered to their destinations. Also, divided shelves 2
The letters and postal items that have been sorted are taken out all at once at a predetermined time or every time and are delivered. In this case as well, letters and mail are grouped by category, but if the amount of sorted letters and mail is small, in other words, if the amount of stacked letters and mail is small, other categories with roughly the same destination area may be grouped. Combine with letters and mail,
These items are grouped together. The merging device 6 is used for the merging process of letters and mail.
It is. In addition, mail items in the above-mentioned merging categories are sent to the same local office that has the same first two digits of the postal code, and in this case, the above-mentioned local office will again classify the destination areas at a detailed level. become.

Therefore, in the merging device 6, if it is required to evacuate letters and mail items with a small amount of stacking until mail items of a category that can be combined are conveyed, the merging device 6 does not remove the sorted letters and mail items from the sorting shelf. If the sorting equipment were to be taken out at random, a large number of merging letters and mail evacuation ports would be required, resulting in a large-scale device configuration and a problem that would lead to a decrease in the functional efficiency of the sorting device.

The present invention was made in consideration of the above circumstances, and its purpose is to keep the visibility of the sorting shelves and to keep the stacked amount to a predetermined amount when taking out sorted letters and mail all at once. To provide a highly practical letter and mail sorting device that can efficiently combine letters and mail that do not meet the requirements.

That is, the present invention makes it possible to efficiently combine letters and mail by reducing the number of evacuation openings in the combining device by optimizing the arrangement of the sorting areas on the sorting shelf and the order in which they are taken out all at once. A simple and highly practical letter and mail sorting device has been realized.

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the main parts of the apparatus, and the same parts are designated by the same reference numerals corresponding to the block diagram shown in FIG. 1. That is, the reading discrimination section 1
Letters and mail items 7 in a standard size sent to the storage area are taken out one by one or one bag at a time, their postal codes are read and recognized, and they are sorted and sorted into the preset destination area of the sorting shelf 2. It will be done. Then, each sorted mail piece 7 is sequentially stacked in each sorting area. Each time the letters and mail that have been sorted into destinations reach a certain amount,
It is extruded onto a pallet 3a in a take-out device 3 and guided onto a conveyance line 4. The letter mail 7 is conveyed to the bundler 5 by this conveyance line 4. Letters and mail 7 are sorted and stacked on the sorting shelf 2.
are taken out all at once at a certain time, for example, each time a day's collection and delivery ends, and the pallets 3a of the take-out device 3 are
Each item is loaded separately. Then, by the movement of the pallet 3a, the letters and mails 7 are sent onto the conveyance line 4, and the letters and mails 7 whose stacking amount is less than a predetermined amount are stacked and merged with other categories of letters and mails 7 that are allowed to be merged by the merging device 6. be done. The bundler 5 bundles these stacked letters and mail items 7 for delivery.

By the way, the take-out device 3 is configured as shown in FIG. 3, for example. That is, the pallets 3a are arranged at the rear of each sorting area of the sorting shelf 2, and after placing the letters and mail items 7 pushed out from the sorting shelf 2, the pallets 3a are controlled in movement and delivered to the four sides of the conveyance line. Driven to move. For example, the sorting shelf 2 has four stages and eight rows of sorting areas arranged in a grid pattern, and the pallets 3a are arranged at the rear of each of these sorting areas. Therefore, when unloading all at once, the letters and mail 7 that have been sorted and stacked in each sorting area are loaded onto the pallets 3a all at once. These pallets 3a are shifted laterally in each row as shown by arrow A in the figure, and sent out one by one to the lift mechanism 8 from the end side. Lift mechanism 8
The pallet 3a sent out here is lowered step by step in synchronization with the lateral shift of the pallet 3a, and the letters and mail 7 placed on the pallet 3a located at the lowest step are moved onto the conveyance line 4. It has become something that will be sent to Then, the pallet 3a that has been sent out is placed on its return route and moved to the rear position of the sorting shelf 2 again.
It is used for taking out the next letter/postal item 7. Therefore, in the lift mechanism 8, the pallet 3a fed out by the lateral shift is shifted by one step, and when the pallet 3a is further shifted in the lateral direction, it is again shifted by one step.
By repeating this one after another, the partitioned shelf 2
Letters and mail items 7 that have been sorted and stacked are sequentially and continuously delivered to the conveyance line 4 for each category. As a result, the arrangement of the pallets 3a from which letters and mail items 7 are delivered from the lowest stage of the lift mechanism 8 onto the conveyance line 4 is shifted by one timing in the direction of the lateral shift. Therefore, the order in which the letters and mail items 7 are taken out from the sorting shelf 2 is sequential in the diagonal direction, as shown in FIG.

By the way, the postal code that serves as the destination area information is 3.
It consists of a digit or a number consisting of these three digits plus a two-digit subscript, and is determined according to the collection and delivery regional station for each delivery. However, when the destinations are classified in detail in this manner, if the amount of stacked letters and mail items 7 in one category is less than, for example, 10, it becomes extremely difficult to sort them. In such a case, it would be better to have the delivery delivered to a regional central office that integrates the above-mentioned collection and delivery regional offices that have the same first two digits of the postal code, and to separate the destinations at that central office, which would avoid problems with collection and other problems. It's convenient. From this, the merging of the sorted letters and mail items 7 by the merging device 6 becomes effective. However, in this case, there are naturally restrictions on the combinations of sections that can be merged. That is, as mentioned above, merging is only allowed between destination areas that have the same upper two digits of the postal code.

However, in this device, the destination section of the divided shelf 2 is
Postal codes that have the same first two digits are grouped together, and as shown in Figure 5, they are sequentially and regularly allocated according to the lattice-like partition area arrangement of the partition shelf 2, which is conventionally done manually. It has the same shape as the sorting boxes that were presented to the public. In other words, the divided areas are consecutively allocated to destinations in the order of postal codes, making the arrangement easy to see. This allows the operator to easily grasp the classification status, and also simplifies checks during maintenance.

Therefore, the sorted shelf 2 with such destination assignments
When simultaneous retrieval is performed as described above, since the retrieval order is diagonal, the categories belonging to destination groups that are allowed to merge will not be retrieved consecutively. It only covers two groups. In other words, in this case, the destination area is "510", "511", "514" - "519", "522"
It will be read out in the order of "517", but the destination segment that is mixed when extracting the upper two digits "51" is "522".
``53'' category will not be mixed together. Therefore, the number of escape ports required for the merging device 6 is 2.
If one is prepared, it is possible to reliably perform merging processing for each group.

Thus, according to this device, by collectively assigning the destination sections that can be merged to the sorting shelf 2, it is possible to easily check their status, and to easily perform the merge process when taking out items all at once. obtain. Moreover, when the arrangement configuration of destination allocation and the order of taking out satisfy a predetermined relationship, and the letters and mail items 7 of the category belonging to the Nth group are mainly taken out at once, the category belonging to the (N+M)th group Since the items are not taken out, the merging device 6 is simply provided with M evacuation ports, and the letters and mail items 7 that are less than the predetermined stacked amount of each classification group can be transferred to other categories of the same group. It can be effectively stacked on object 7. Therefore, it is possible to simplify the overall configuration of the device and facilitate its handling. Moreover, as a result of this, it is possible to bundle letters and mail items 7 that are difficult to sort due to a small amount of stacking together with other types of letters and mail items 7, which facilitates handling during delivery and improves the functionality of the sorting device. It becomes possible to fully demonstrate.

By the way, the merging device 6 is configured as shown in FIG. 6, for example. That is, the merging device 6 is provided at a side position of the conveyance line 4 where the letters and mails 7 taken out from the sorting shelf 2 are placed on the pallet 3a and conveyed, and when the stacked amount of letters and mails 7 is small, For example, when there are 10 or less mails, they are pushed by the push plate 11 and removed from the conveyance line 4. A stacking table 12 is provided at this detached position so as to be movable up and down, and the small amount of mail 7 that has been pushed out is placed on the stacking table 12 as schematically shown in FIG. 7a. As a result, the stacking table 12 is placed in the seventh position so that the upper surface of the mail piece 7 is lower than the conveying surface of the conveying line 4.
It is controlled to descend as shown in Figure b. Then, letters and mail items 7 of other categories that can be merged are stacked on top of this as shown in FIG. 7c. In this way, the mail items 77 are combined, and when the stacked amount reaches a predetermined thickness, the stacking table 12 is controlled to rise, and the combined letter mail items 7 are It is returned onto the conveyance line 4. When the combined letters and mail 7 are to be taken out manually, the stacking table 12 is lowered to the lowest position as shown in FIG. 7d, and then the door 13 is opened and taken out. Further, the descending control of the stacking table 12 is performed by, for example, detecting the upper surface position of the letters and mail items 7 placed on the stacking table 12 using the sensor 14.

In this way, when the amount of letters and mail items 7 that have been sorted as described above is small, they are appropriately combined with letters and mail items 7 of other categories that are allowed to merge, and then bundled. Since the number of evacuation ports required for the device 6 is small, the device configuration can be simplified, and the merging control can be easily performed, resulting in great effects. Moreover, it is possible to easily and accurately grasp the divided areas of the divided shelves 2 into destinations.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments. For example, the number of partitioned areas in the partitioned shelf 2 may be appropriately determined according to specifications. Furthermore, the structure of the merging device 6 is not limited to the example described above. In short, the present invention aims at simplifying the device configuration while ensuring the ease of viewing the partitioned shelves, and can be implemented with various modifications without departing from the gist thereof.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a letter and mail sorting device, FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of main parts of the apparatus of the present invention, FIG. 3 is a schematic configuration diagram of a take-out device, and FIG.
The figure shows the order in which sorted letters and mail are taken out all at once from the sorting shelf, Figure 5 shows an example of address allocation for the sorted areas of the sorting shelf, and Figure 6 shows an example of a merging device. The configuration diagrams and FIGS. 7a to 7d are diagrams schematically showing the functions of the merging device. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...reading discrimination part, 2...sorting shelf, 3...take-out device, 3a...pallet, 4...conveyance line, 5...bundling machine, 6...combining device, 7...letter mail, 8... Lift mechanism, 11... Push plate, 12
...Accumulation stand, 13...Door, 14...Sensor.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A partitioned shelf in which a plurality of partitioned areas to which destinations are allocated are arranged in a grid pattern, and a partitioned shelf in which a plurality of partitioned areas to which destinations are allocated are arranged in the arrangement direction in each partitioned area of the partitioned shelf for each of the plurality of destinations belonging to the same destination group. means for sorting letters and mail by sequentially and continuously assigning addresses along the sorting shelf; and means for sequentially taking out letters and mail to be taken out all at once from the sorting shelf in a diagonal direction with respect to the arrangement direction of each sorting area of the sorting shelf. and a means for stacking the letters and mails that are less than a predetermined stacking amount among the letters and mails that have been transported, on top of the letters and mails of other destinations belonging to the same destination group. Letter and mail sorting device. 2. The means for sequentially taking out letters and mail in a diagonal direction with respect to the arrangement direction of each sorting area of a sorting shelf is a means for taking out letters and postal items in a direction diagonal to the arrangement direction of each sorting area of a sorting shelf, which is arranged at a position facing each sorting area of a sorting shelf and taking out letters and mail from each sorted area at once. A pallet on which items are placed, a means for stacking these pallets one stage at a time in the horizontal direction, and a means for stacking the pallets that have been shifted in the horizontal direction and protruded from the position facing the divided area, in synchronization with the horizontal shift. 2. The apparatus for sorting letters and mail items according to claim 1, comprising a lift mechanism that lowers the pallet step by step, and means for taking out the letters and mail items from the pallet lowered to the lowest step by the lift mechanism onto a conveying line.