Post Office barcodes mail to speed sorting

The Post Office will ditch its digital letter-coding system in favour of barcodes next year, as part of a #200m investment in mail sorting.

The Royal Mail's integrated mail processing system (Imps) will use new, four-state barcodes. These hold twice as much information as the existing method of printing digitised signatures on letters.

Imps will recognise both handwriting and printed type using state of the art optical character readers. It will also separate addresses it is unable to read. An interface will enable customers to track down their post.

The investment will help the company improve its huge processing operation which tops 12 million items an hour at peak times. Imps is the core of the Post Office's recently launched enterprise-wide, distributed IT strategy, codenamed Genesis.

Post Office IT director Duncan Hine said the system, which is being trialled at a number of sorting offices, will be introduced around the UK. It will replace the Royal Mail's sorting equipment in about 80 automatic processing centres.

The investment reflects the increasing competition that the Post Office faces from other postal services. The Royal Mail is particularly concerned about bulk or direct mail competition, said a Post Office spokesman.

This year, the Royal Mail invested in a hybrid mail system which enables customers to send letters or documentation electronically via the Royal Mail. The system prints out, customises and distributes the mail accordingly. Microsoft is a major customer of this hybrid mail service.