OREANDA-NEWS. June 09, 2011. NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) announced today the conclusion of a contract with Swiss Post (CEO: Mr. Jurg Bucher), Switzerland's national postal service, to provide three advanced and fully automated Flat Sorting Machines (FSM) for mail centers in Mulligen, Harkingen and Eclepens by the end of 2012.

In 2009, NEC provided Swiss Post with all five of the existing FSMs at the three centers noted above in order to sort mainly a vast range of large-size materials, including paper envelopes, plastic wrapped mail and open magazines. In addition to large-size items, the three new FSMs will sort regular-size and plastic-wrapped mail of more than 10mm thickness which is currently sorted by hand.

Each new and existing machine is equipped with four high-performance feeders that use the latest technologies to support a feed-in rate of over 10,000 items per hour, which enables a total machine throughput of more than 40,000 items per hour.

Key features of NEC's Flat Sorting Machines are as follows:
220 Sorting outlets

 - Mail stack level detection system in each outlet for high quality mail stacking in a tray
4 High-speed flat feeders

 - Processes over 10,000 items per hour per feeder across a wide range of mail items
- Tray Tilting Devices (TTD) at each feeder assists with unloading trays and feeding mail
Integrated tray handling system for full and empty trays

 - Fully automated system for supplying empty trays and unloading full trays
- Fully automated label print and application system for trays

 In 2003, Swiss Post initiated its ReEngineering of the Mail Automation (REMA) project for improving the sorting structure of the company's mail process. NEC provided all five of the new FSMs that were ordered as part of the REMA project and it aims to continue contributing to the improvement of Swiss Post's mail process automation and services.

NEC has delivered postal automation systems to the postal administrations of more than fifty countries throughout the world since entering the field in 1961. Looking forward, NEC will continue capitalizing on the latest technologies to improve postal administrations across the globe.