WESTERN Australia has received 8 per cent of Australia Post’s $100 million national rollout of new large letter sorting equipment.
The $8 million investment, which was commissioned on October 4, effectively doubles the Federal Government-owned logistics business’s sorting machinery investment at its Perth Mail Centre near the domestic airport.
Its other mail sorting machines there are estimated to have a combined value of $8 million.
The Siemens-made large letter sorter is already having a large impact on sorting times for large letters – those that are around A4 size – which is becoming a growth area in mail.
Large letters are also used predominantly for business mail.
The new machine is currently processing between 15,000 to 16,000 large mail items an hour, and has yet to reach its full operational capacity.
At full capacity the sorter has been designed to handle 23,000 items an hour.
The previous large letter sorter at the Perth Mail Centre could only manage 6,000 pieces of mail an hour. The new machine also allows Australia Post to sort print-post material such as magazines, something its predecessor could not do.
Australia Post State communication manager Ian Leggoe said print post was a growth business for the mail carrier.
The new machine is also likely to cause some changes right throughout the organisation.
Its efficacy relies on the large letters all facing the correct way.
This means that care has to be taken at the Post Shop level to ensure that large letters are put into mail tubs facing the right way.
By comparison, the small letter sorting machines at Perth Mail Centre can handle between 20,000 and 30,000 items of mail an hour.
