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A self-service checkout system allowing customers to perform purchasing functions while ensuring payment and preventing theft. The system's payment card reader and price scanner are operable by the customer to read product tags including price and/or serial number data and a desensitizable security

A self-service checkout system allowing customers to perform purchasing functions while ensuring payment and preventing theft. The system's payment card reader and price scanner are operable by the customer to read product tags including price and/or serial number data and a desensitizable security tag. The product tag is inserted into a slot in a housing for the price scanner and desensitizer that shields a desensitizing effect from any security tags outside the housing. The system desensitizes the security tag only if a charge to the payment card is approved. A detector is positioned near the store exit to detect items exiting the store which have not been released from the security system. Serial number information from the product tag may be read as the items leave the store and compared with a database of serial numbers of purchased items to determine whether to activate an alarm.

대표청구항 ▼

A self-service checkout system allowing customers to perform purchasing functions while ensuring payment and preventing theft. The system's payment card reader and price scanner are operable by the customer to read product tags including price and/or serial number data and a desensitizable security

A self-service checkout system allowing customers to perform purchasing functions while ensuring payment and preventing theft. The system's payment card reader and price scanner are operable by the customer to read product tags including price and/or serial number data and a desensitizable security tag. The product tag is inserted into a slot in a housing for the price scanner and desensitizer that shields a desensitizing effect from any security tags outside the housing. The system desensitizes the security tag only if a charge to the payment card is approved. A detector is positioned near the store exit to detect items exiting the store which have not been released from the security system. Serial number information from the product tag may be read as the items leave the store and compared with a database of serial numbers of purchased items to determine whether to activate an alarm. rality of mail items into a final sequenced set of the items for delivery to predetermined delivery points, some of said mail items being pre-sequenced in delivery point sequence (DPS) of selected carrier routes, and other mail items being in a different order from the delivery point sequence, comprising the steps of: a) feeding the mail items from a single input stream to a staging station; b) sampling each mail item in the input stream to determine if the mail item is in the delivery point sequence, or a different order; c) sorting the mail items at the staging station into one or more of subsets of mail items re-sequenced into an intermediate order, as an intermediate step to achieving said final sequenced set, said staging station having a plurality of storage units X1to Xn,wherein n is the total number of storage units, said storage units temporarily storing said items in said subsets by; 1) inserting each mail item into any selected one of said storage units X1to Xnin accordance with an insertion plan consistent with an extraction plan for the mail items from those storage units for achieving the delivery point sequence (DPS) of the final sequenced set of mail items; 2) rearranging the mail items in the different order into delivery point sequence (DPS) in the staging station by inserting those mail items into one or more selectable storage units; and 3) selectively extracting the mail items from any selected one of the storage units X1to Xnaccording to said extraction plan; and d) merging the extracted mail items into a single output stream from the respective subsets of mail items into said final sequenced set in delivery point sequence (DPS). 15. The method of claim 14 wherein the different order is in enhanced carrier route line of travel (LOT), as defined by the United States Postal Service (USPS), such that some of the mail items therein are sequenced corresponding to some of the delivery points of mail items in the delivery point sequence (DPS). 16. The method of claim 15 wherein LOT is determined as a function of block face identity, and direction of carrier walk sequence (CWS) in that block, said block face identity representing a side of a street on a carrier delivery route. 17. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of rearranging comprises the steps of: 1) determining which items in the input stream are in order with CWS, and which are in reverse order with respect thereto; 2) separating the in-order items and reverse-order items into separate subsets of items in the staging station; and 3) recombining the subsets in the staging station into one sequenced group of items in CWS. 18. The method of claim 14 wherein the different order is a random order. 19. The method of claim 14 wherein the segment for sampling includes: marking each mail item with a code that identifies prospective delivery points for the mail item and a relative order of delivery; a segment for reading the code of each item in the input stream; a segment for comparing the code to delivery points in a carrier walk sequence (CWS) of the selected carrier route; and a segment for determining from the comparison which items are in the deliver