20030724 - USPS - AFSM (Automated Flats Sorting Machine) - screen - status screen - 100-0085
You can see some of the statistics of the AFSM. Notice the OCR stats of 98% in the bottom right? The envelopes are sorted by ZIP code automatically (flats are easier to do this than small parcels). The remaining 2% are sent (as a JPG or some image format) to a remote data entry center where people sit in closed rooms and manually key ZIP codes all day. There is one center to do all the rejected OCR scans for the whole country. At least the people who key zips in the facility get to change tasks every 30 minutes -- I shudder to think of these people keying in ZIP codes all day.
BACKSTORY: We got to go on a 'field trip' at work, driving back from L'Enfant Plaza, Washington D.C. (where I worked) to Merrifield,VA (very close to where I live). I got to take pictures. I don't think that we really used them that much, except as a secondary reference for mail sorting machine control panels and such.
AFSM (Automated Flats Sorting Machine), monitor, status screen.
USPS, Merrifield, Virginia.
July 24, 2003.
... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com
20030724 - USPS - AFSM (Automated Flats Sorting Machine) - screen - status screen - 100-0085
You can see some of the statistics of the AFSM. Notice the OCR stats of 98% in the bottom right? The envelopes are sorted by ZIP code automatically (flats are easier to do this than small parcels). The remaining 2% are sent (as a JPG or some image format) to a remote data entry center where people sit in closed rooms and manually key ZIP codes all day. There is one center to do all the rejected OCR scans for the whole country. At least the people who key zips in the facility get to change tasks every 30 minutes -- I shudder to think of these people keying in ZIP codes all day.
BACKSTORY: We got to go on a 'field trip' at work, driving back from L'Enfant Plaza, Washington D.C. (where I worked) to Merrifield,VA (very close to where I live). I got to take pictures. I don't think that we really used them that much, except as a secondary reference for mail sorting machine control panels and such.
AFSM (Automated Flats Sorting Machine), monitor, status screen.
USPS, Merrifield, Virginia.
July 24, 2003.
... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com