Automated Sortation System

An automated sortation system is a mechanized material-handling installation, typically built around a network of conveyors feeding a tilt-tray, cross-belt or sliding-shoe diverting mechanism, that automatically routes packages or parcels to the correct destination chute or bin as each item passes a barcode or other identifier reader. Such systems developed through the middle decades of the twentieth century as postal services and, later, parcel carriers mechanized what had been manual sorting by hand, and they became central to the high-volume distribution hubs that large-scale mail and parcel delivery depend on. Modern sortation systems combine high-speed scanning with computer-controlled routing logic to sort tens of thousands of items per hour with far greater speed and accuracy than manual sorting allowed.