ID Mail Systems has recently finished the development of a new product, the Dispatcher Max. This is a new type of machine in the sorting equipment and mailing world, in that it sorts previously
‘non-machinable’ mail.
The evolution of the Dispatcher Max began in 1995 with the Dispatcher, a product designed for sorting flats, letters and mixed letter streams. In 2009 the Dispatcher MX came to fruition for Post Danmark, which needed a mail-sorting machine that could also be used for franking mail.
The Dispatcher Max, created for PostNL, the postal operator for the Netherlands, had a new set of requirements, including the sorting and coding of rest mail. This required ID Mail to improve the Dispatcher MX with a set of advanced features, ultimately creating a new machine. The resulting Dispatcher Max can handle everything from gift-wrapped packages and small, heavy or lumpy pieces, to envelopes, packets and boxes – basically almost everything less than 40mm thick, 400mm long and 300mm wide, with a weight limit of 3,000g, that does not run on PostNL’s existing mail sorting machines.
Another advanced dual-feature of the Dispatcher Max is the new labeller and printer. The printer can print two lines of 30 characters directly on the mailpiece or onto the label. The system decides, based on the background of the mailpiece, whether to print direct or to label. The printer is a Markem-Imaje 9293/9293 IP 65 and provides a number of advantages. It can print on plastic envelopes, shrink wrap, Tyvek, cardboard and paper. The printer is also free of ketone and MEK inks. The labeller can be used to create a clean zone on the mailpiece. The label is applied by a Label-Aire Model 3111-NV and is designed for high-speed air-blow labelling applications. The labels are easily removable and do not ruin any type of surface. This is most important on newspapers and magazines, which may have advertisements, information or pictures the recipients may want to see.
Another advance created for the Dispatcher Max is the dynamic sort bin allocation. The system’s sensors monitor the capacity of each bin and can tell when one is full. The software can then divert the mail to a new bin that will be assigned the same destination. It can also assign
a completely new destination to a bin once it has been emptied.
The Dispatcher Max is equipped with a new colour image camera. It provides grayscale and binary images, 13.54cm vertical field of view, and polarised filtration for glare reduction, and yields
a 200 x 200ppi image resolution when mail is running at 47in/sec. The camera has a deep depth of field for thin and thick mail, and a laser reader for measuring the thickness of mailpieces as they pass.
The most impressive quality of the Dispatcher Max is versatility. It can meet all sorting needs, handling everything from normal letters or flats to irregular packages and materials. ID Mail Systems is known for making unique machines, customising each to fit the customer’s needs, and tailoring each system to the customer’s exact requirements.
