Patent ID: 8880215

Claim:
An automated letter movement system (ALMS) characterized in that it comprises: a plurality of postal item processing lines ( 3 ), for example AFCS (Advanced Facer Canceller System) devices, each of which receives incoming postal items ( 7 ); a plurality of SSM devices ( 10 ), each of which receives at input postal items from ( 20 ) at least one postal item processing line ( 3 ) and is adapted to group the postal items forming shingled groups ( 12 ) of partially overlapping postal items, aligned along a feed direction and having corresponding edges spaced from one another, each SSM device ( 10 ) being configured to carry out at least one sorting cycle in order to generate different shingled groups (F, L, O), each of which comprises postal items characterized by a common sorting criterion, for example belonging to the same postal area or the same kind of customer; at least a transportation system ( 14 ) adapted to move the shingled groups ( 12 ) generated by the SSM devices ( 10 ) along a first feed direction; a plurality of postal item output processing lines ( 16 ), in particular DBCS (Delivery Bar Code Sorter) devices, each of which is adapted to carry out the sorting of the postal items fed into it; and a plurality of singulator modules ( 18 ) receiving the shingled groups arriving from said transportation system ( 14 ), each singulator module ( 18 ) being configured to only singularize the postal items belonging to a specific group and being adapted to send the singularized postal items to a respective postal item output processing line ( 16 ) configured to implement a specific sorting program for the postal items belonging to the group that was subjected to singularization.