Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Stephen Cousins

Nicole Blohm

An approach is provided for retrieving physical mail items using Augmented Reality (A/R) technology. According to the approach, mail items are stored in a designated area of a mail item facility and users are notified that the mail items are available for pickup. The users are guided to the locations of their respective mail items in the mail item facility via A/R technology. This includes superimposing visual cues on a live image displayed on a mobile computing device to direct the users to locations of their mail items. Embodiments include dynamically updating the visual cues based upon the location and orientation of the mobile computing device, providing 'out of view' assistance, and displaying information about mail items.

Mail item retrieval using augmented reality

Improved high-density mail services evaluate historical mail fulfillment data for a plurality of recipients and dynamically assigning mail bins for each recipient based on the historical mail fulfillment data. Subsequently, the dynamically assigned mail is automatically distributed to the plurality of recipients using a distribution mechanism, such as a robotic arm. The high-density mail services may also include determining an estimated next pick-up time period for each recipient based on the historical mail fulfillment data and dynamically assigning mail bins based, at least in part, on the estimated next pick-up time period. The high-density mail services may also include determining a bin size based, at least in part, on an estimated next pick-up time period, or an estimated next delivery time period, and dynamically assigning mail bins based, at least in part, on the bin size.

High-density dynamic mail services

In an embodiment, an apparatus comprises one or more processors and one or more memories communicatively coupled to the one or more processors and storing instructions which, when processed by the one or more processors, cause: receiving a digital image of undeliverable mail and storing the digital image in a first database; causing data to be extracted from the digital image using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) or by processing encoded data; in response to causing data to be extracted from the digital image, identifying a sender of the undeliverable mail and a recipient of the undeliverable mail based on the data; causing additional data to be requested from two or more second databases based on the data extracted from the digital image; in response to delivery of the undeliverable mail and using the additional data requested from the two or more second databases, determining delivery hit rates for each of the two or more second databases; assigning, based on a highest hit rate of the delivery hit rates, at least one of the two or more second databases as a primary database from which additional data is requested; and in response to assigning the at least one of the two or more second databases as the primary database, causing additional data to be requested from the primary database.

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Nashville, TN, United States of America

Stephen Cousins