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![ZIP Codes:
By the early 1960s, the swelling volume of mail was taxing the Post Office Department to its limits. Zoning Improvement Plan -- ZIP -- Codes were one response to this growing mountain of mail. Using numbers to stand for regions, cities, post offices, or even city neighborhoods made its easier [to] sort the mail -- by machine or by hand. Today ZIP Codes are used to help shape everything from voting districts to marketing campaigns.
What Do the Codes Represent?
Think of each 5-digit ZIP Code as a group of addresses. They might be homes or businesses, schools or apartment houses. One 5-digit number might represent 10,000 delivery points -- spread out over many miles in a rural area of concentrated in a few city blocks.
What Does Each Number Mean?
The first digit represents a region of the country. The next two digits stand for a central post office facility in the region. The last two digits represent a post office or a postal zone. So, the ZIP Code 97403 means the west coast & Pacific, Eugene mail center, and the University of Oregon.](/Graphlib/GraphData12.nsf/Images/2012_DC_SIPM_Systems_0160/$File/SIPMSY_120106_085.JPG) |
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![Bulk Mail Centers -- Streamlining the mail flow:
Lots of businesses send out millions of pieces of mail -- from magazines to sweepstakes entries -- sometimes in a single day. The USPS has worked out a system with businesses like this so they take on some of the work of preparing and sorting the mail, and the USPS gives them a discount on the postage. Take a magazine, for example.
Judy Franklin's aunt and uncle buy her a subscription to the new Nintendo Power Magazine for her 11th birthday. They mail in the subscription request, and the magazine's distributor is notified to add the Franklin residence in Norman, OK, to the list of recipients.
The company that mails Nintendo Power prints postage and an address label [on] each copy, and sorts the magazines to the first three digits of their ZIP Codes before stacking them on a pallet. These pallets are then shipped to the nearest Bulk Mail Center.
At the Bulk Mail Center, the pallet is spot-checked to make sure that the mailer has been accurate about the number of magazines shipped, weight, etc. The magazines are then sorted there, and shipped out to different postal facilities across the country. Judy's magazine goes to the Norman, OK Processing and Distribution Center, where the magazine is sorted into the rest of the mail stream and sorted down to the appropriate local post office.
Twenty-one of the new Bulk Mail Centers were built in the 1980s. The Postal Service hoped to keep up with the rising ride of commercial mass mailings by crisscrossing the nation with a network of specialized centers, and by implementing pricing policies that encouraged mailers to carry some of the burden of sorting and transporting the mail.](/Graphlib/GraphData12.nsf/Images/2012_DC_SIPM_Systems_0160/$File/SIPMSY_120106_190.JPG) |
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![Camera Mechanism, Lockheed-Martin Wide Field of View [WFOV] Camera:
Developed by Lockheed Martin and the USPS and deployed in 2002, the WFOV camera can read many forms of barcodes, machine-printed writing, and even handwriting. By taking four simultaneous images of each mail piece, the WFOV camera achieved remarkable levels of accuracy.
OCR: The Unblinking Mechanical Eye:
Since research began in the 1960s, Optical Character Recognition -- the ability of machines to read printed words -- was seen as an essential first step in truly automating mail processing. With such technology, a significant percentage of the US mail could be sorted and processed without a single human eye reading the address until it was ready for delivery. The unblinking mechanical eye of the Optical Character Reader (OCR) camera oversaw huge swaths of mail processing.](/Graphlib/GraphData12.nsf/Images/2012_DC_SIPM_Systems_0160/$File/SIPMSY_120106_198.JPG) |
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![Intelligent Mail:
Once ZIP Codes were translated into automation-readable barcodes, the USPS and mailing companies began working to pack more and more information into those codes. The codes evolved into the USPS's Intelligent Mail Barcode system. The original 7-digit ZIP code is now 31-digits of information tucked into 65 bars in each code.
The 31 digits include ZIP Code information [and] other data that can reveal how the mail was presorted, whether it was first-class mail or a periodical, the business sending each piece, and automatic address forwarding information.
The barcode also permits tracking of individual pieces of mail. When you return a pre-addressed business reply by mail, businesses can forecast when it will arrive. All this saves companies money, makes their business more predictable, speeds mail delivery time, and makes the postal system even more efficient -- and efficiency is important, considering that half a billion pieces of mail flow through the system each day.](/Graphlib/GraphData12.nsf/Images/2012_DC_SIPM_Systems_0160/$File/SIPMSY_120106_275.JPG) |
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