Patent ID: 7984809

Claim:
A sorting system, comprising: a shipment sorting unit comprising a plurality of shipment sorting slots for sorting items into respective shipments, and an indicator dedicated to each shipment sorting slot; a control system configured to: control the sorting system in a sorting mode, wherein during the sorting mode the control system is configured to, for a given item to be sorted, activate an indicator dedicated to a particular sorting slot of said plurality of shipment sorting slots assigned to the shipment to which the given item belongs, wherein activation of the indicator indicates the given item is to be placed in said particular sorting slot; control the sorting system in a delivery mode, wherein during the delivery mode the control system is configured to, for each given shipment sorting slot that contains a completely sorted shipment, activate a respective indicator dedicated to the given shipment sorting slot, wherein activation of the indicator indicates the completely sorted shipment is to be delivered to a next processing stage; in response to determining that a processing threshold has been met, switch the sorting system from the sorting mode to the delivery mode.