Watching a Multi-Line Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) machine in action is an eye-opening experience. As mail pieces zip through the equipment at over 30 miles per hour, the technology reads addresses with remarkable accuracy using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Handwritten fonts, once a challenge for machines, are processed effortlessly, and even undeliverable mail is redirected in real-time. It’s easy to overlook what happens before a piece of mail arrives at your home, but the journey is one of advanced technology and innovation.
The Technology Behind Presorting
Presorting relies heavily on advanced machinery. Early versions of OCR technology struggled to read certain fonts, particularly handwritten ones, leading to rejection rates as high as 20%. Today, thanks to significant improvements, reject rates have fallen to less than two percent. These advancements have made the sorting process faster and more reliable.
MLOCRs play a crucial role in modern presorting by scanning, interpreting, and categorizing addresses with incredible speed and accuracy. These machines utilize sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to differentiate between fonts, correct errors, and even decipher complex handwriting. As a result, mail is sorted into precise categories, allowing for seamless processing and delivery optimization.
Why Saturation Matters More Than Volume
In presorting mail, the density of mail within specific geographic areas, referred to as saturation, often outweighs the importance of overall volume when it comes to cost savings.
- A business sending only a few hundred mail pieces wouldn’t normally qualify for automation discounts. However, when mail service providers leverage saturation strategies, small-volume mailings can benefit significantly.
- Saturation becomes especially valuable during seasonal spikes, such as the holidays, tax season, or special promotional periods, when businesses experience surges in mail volume. By creating targeted sorting schemes for specific regions, mail service providers can optimize delivery and reduce costs.
By leveraging saturation strategies, businesses can capitalize on lower postage rates while ensuring their mail reaches recipients in a timely manner. This technique allows mailers to compete effectively even with limited mailing volumes.
Commingling: Collaboration for Greater Savings
Commingling is a process where mail from multiple customers is combined into a single batch, allowing both large and small mailers to achieve postage savings.
By grouping mail pieces headed to the same geographic areas, commingling enables smaller mailers to qualify for discounts that are typically reserved for larger mailings. Under current USPS rates, this process can yield savings of up to $0.18 per piece.
Commingling is especially effective with First-Class Mail, where combining multiple customers' mail for similar destinations results in substantial cost reductions. This approach ensures that small-volume mailers benefit from the economies of scale normally enjoyed by larger businesses.
While commingling First-Class Mail is highly efficient, combining standard mail can be more logistically challenging and less cost-effective. Despite these hurdles, commingling remains an essential tool for achieving efficiency and savings, particularly during periods of high mail volume.
The Environmental Benefits of Presorting
Beyond cost savings and efficiency, presorting also has significant environmental benefits. As sustainability becomes an increasing priority for businesses and consumers, presorting offers a way to reduce the environmental impact of mailing operations.
- Reduced Carbon Footprint: When mail is presorted, it can be grouped by geographic regions or delivery routes, allowing postal services to optimize delivery routes. This reduces the total distance traveled and fuel consumption, leading to a decrease in carbon emissions associated with transportation.
- Lower Energy Use in Processing: Presorted mail requires less sorting at the central facility because it's already organized by destination. This means fewer machines and manual labor are needed, which reduces energy consumption and the associated environmental impact.
- Decreased Waste from Undeliverable Mail: Presorting ensures mail is sent to the right locations, reducing the likelihood of returned or undeliverable mail. This not only minimizes the waste associated with returned mail (like packaging materials) but also reduces the need for reprocessing, which can be energy-intensive.
- Better Use of Resources: Presorted mail often involves streamlined sorting processes that can reduce overproduction and unnecessary mailings. For example, businesses may be able to target their mailings more effectively, ensuring fewer duplicate deliveries or irrelevant communications, which helps reduce overall waste.
The Role of AI in Presorting
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the presorting process, making it more efficient and accurate than ever before. AI-powered MLOCRs can analyze addresses with unparalleled precision, identifying incorrect information and suggesting corrections in real-time. This minimizes errors and ensures that more mail reaches its intended destination without delays.
AI also enables predictive analytics, allowing mail service providers to anticipate mailing trends and optimize sorting methods accordingly. Machine learning algorithms can analyze historical data to determine the most efficient routing strategies, reducing delays and further enhancing cost savings.
Additionally, AI-driven automation has significantly decreased the reliance on manual labor, reducing operational costs for mail service providers. Automated systems can handle vast amounts of data, process addresses at high speeds, and even detect potential fraud or errors before mail is dispatched.
Harnessing the Power of Presorting
Presorting mail has come a long way from manual sorting to today’s highly efficient, AI-powered processes. The integration of MLOCR technology, saturation strategies, and commingling has transformed the way mail is processed and delivered. By leveraging these advancements, businesses can cut costs, reduce waste, and ensure their mail reaches the right hands with precision and speed.
With the continued evolution of AI and machine learning, the future of mail sorting looks even more promising. The ability to read and process addresses with near-perfect accuracy, optimize delivery routes, and reduce environmental impact makes presorting an indispensable tool for modern businesses. As technology continues to advance, mail service providers and businesses alike will benefit from even greater efficiencies, cost savings, and sustainability improvements in the years to come.
Beth Brown, an account executive at United Direct Solutions, is a highly accomplished direct marketing strategist with a proven track record of delivering exceptional results for her clients through data-driven campaigns. Her areas of expertise include strategic data acquisition, predictive analysis, and variable data printing, where she focuses on personalizing marketing materials to resonate with target audiences. Beth also specializes in comprehensive mailing fulfillment services, offering end-to-end solutions utilizing automation that ensure seamless execution for critical communications, from initial strategy to final delivery.
This article originally appeared in the March/April, 2025 issue of Mailing Systems Technology.
