Isle of Man Post Office first introduced automatic mail sorting machinery in 2001. But the world does not stand still and Isle of Man Post Office has recently invested in technological improvements which allow it to read postcodes and mail addresses more efficiently and sort the mail more effectively than ever before.
A new Optical Character Recognition (OCR) letter sorting machine, based at Postal Headquarters, can now read the addresses and postcodes on mail at speeds approaching 50,000 items an hour, which is 25% faster than we could previously achieve.
Isle of Man Post Office delivers around 115,000-120,000 items every day and despatches up to 65,000 items posted on the Island every evening. This mail needs to be sorted quickly and efficiently which means Isle of Man Post Office requires the best equipment to help its postal staff ensure speedy delivery to Island, UK and international destinations.
Peter Cropper, Operations Director, Isle of Man Post Office said:
"Our new machine, sourced from Siemens, provides a step change in operational efficiency. It can handle a wider range of mail formats, up to C4 size envelopes and is able to read addresses and postcodes more accurately and to sort the mail significantly faster than before."
"It helps us maintain our competitiveness in the marketplace as we seek to increase mail volumes by attracting additional work from new international markets. The old machine was no slouch but our new one is not only phenomenally fast, processing 800 items per minute, it also brings greater efficiency. Even the most challenging handwritten envelopes can now be read and sorted automatically, as long as they have the required addressing standard."
Peter added:
"The new system cost over £1 million which is a significant investment, but in the years ahead, it will easily pay for itself and bring benefit to the Island's residents and businesses. The testing stages have now been completed and we are very happy with how it is performing."
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