Israel Postal Company invests in Elsag equipment

The Israel Postal Company has invested NIS 50m in automatic mail sorting equipment from Italian firm Elsag Datamat, reports The Jerusalem Post.

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The new equipment will enable 70% of the mail processed by the company to be sorted automatically.

The purchase is part of the IPC’s long-term initiative to improve infrastructure, technological development and automation.

The new machines will be installed in the IPC’s three main sorting centres in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, and will enable same-day service for much of the nation’s mail.

According to Hanan Peretz, the company’s director of logistics and business development, the new equipment enables hands-free sorting of mail from the moment it arrives in the centre till it reaches the mailman’s hands.

“The machines can read handwriting and translate it into a code readable by computers, which then sorts it all the way down to the individual mail delivery person’s route or the neighbourhood delivery station,” said Peretz. “The purchase allows us to more than double our automatic sorting capabilities, from 30% today to upward of 70% once the machines are installed. This saves us time and expenses and improves the service to the customer.”

Peretz said that contrary to common belief, the widespread use of electronic mail has not made regular mail obsolete. “The IPC sorts over 2m articles of mail every day. There are many things that need to get from one place to another and not everything can be done on e-mail. Today most of the activity is in the business sector and in recent years we have seen an increase in the mailing of promotional information.”

“Today the IPC employs 7,000 workers. We hope that that number will remain constant in years to come, despite an expansion in activity and a growing population.”