Patent ID: 7880110

Claim:
A system for processing mail pieces simultaneously on at least two machines, each of the machines having bin partitions allocated for operations, comprising: in a first machine, processing simultaneously, in a first time period, in respective allocated partitions: (i) incoming group and outgoing primary sorting operations; (ii) outgoing primary sorting operations; and (iii) outgoing carrier group holdout mail pieces; processing simultaneously, in a second time period, a delivery point sequencing operation; and processing simultaneously, in a third time period, a residual sorting operation for late arriving mail items which were not processed in the first or second time period; and in a second machine, processing simultaneously, in the first time period, outgoing Group Sort operations; and processing simultaneously, in the second time period and the third time period, a delivery point sequencing operation, wherein the residual sorting operation for late arriving mail items includes cascading late arriving mail items into different sorted groups of mail which are then subjected to a delivery point sequencing operation.