Postal Service: Information on the Change to Multiline Readers for the Zip + 4 Program

摘要

The U.S. Postal Service's ZIP + 4 program consists of two parts: automating the mail processing system and, in conjunction with automation, using a longer ZIP Code (ZIP + 4 code) to process mail. To automate the mail processing system, the Service bought two different types of machines. One machine, an optical character reader, prints a bar code on the envelope representing the ZIP Code or ZIP + 4 code and the other machine, a bar code sorter, reads the bar code for subsequent sorting operations. The Service bought 'single-line' optical character readers (OCR) to read ZIP + 4 codes and print corresponding bar codes. These OCRs, which read the city-state-ZIP Code line of the address block, depend on business mailers to place ZIP + 4 codes on mail. However, another type of OCR--a 'multiline' OCR--has become available that reads at least four lines of the address block, searches an internal directory for that address' ZIP + 4 code, and prints the corresponding bar code.