Bowe Bell + Howell Integrates Parascript's Address Recognition Technology to Process Incoming Mail for One of World's Largest Oil Companies

BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Parascript, LLC, the image analysis and pattern recognition technology provider, today announced the successful implementation of Bowe Bell + Howell's automated incoming mail processing solution with Parascript's optical character recognition (OCR) software at one of the world's largest oil companies. The customer, specializing in oil and gas exploration, production, supply, transportation, and marketing worldwide, needed to process a high volume of incoming and interoffice mail quickly and accurately to its final destination.

The solution had to handle letters and flats containing a large proportion of hard-to-read handwritten information on the envelope. Bowe Bell + Howell's mixed mail, vertical feed sorter, which integrates Parascript's InMailRouter(R) with Bowe Bell + Howell's SABRE(TM) Plus, was selected to handle most of the incoming and inter office mail, resulting in improved accuracy, faster delivery, and significant savings in sorting costs.

Though incoming mail has not traditionally been thought of as a good candidate for automation, the combination of Parascript's InMailRouter with Bowe Bell + Howell's SABRE Plus, especially intended for high-volume mail processing facilities, breaks down that barrier. The OCR technology can sort any type of inbound company mail up to the depth required, including fields such as mail stop, department name, and others. InMailRouter is flexible and can adapt to any address structure and field type. InMailRouter processes all handwritten or machine printed mail pieces, performs in-context recognition, and cross validates the data against the company's database for the highest read rates and accuracy.

"Incoming mail is one of the hardest processes to automate, given the multitude of fields, formats, and address structures. Parascript's InMailRouter expands the abilities of Bowe Bell + Howell's SABRE Plus to provide sorting solutions that include the most advanced OCR technology, including machine print and typically difficult to decipher handwritten information," said George Varghese, senior product manager for Bowe Bell + Howell.

"We are proud to be the leader in mail processing recognition technology and to be working with outstanding partners such as Bowe Bell + Howell, who help major corporations realize the benefits of our combined technologies -- in improving the accuracy and speed of mail delivery, reducing manual sorting costs, and gaining faster access to information and payments sent through the mail," said Kaz Jaszczak, director of product planning and operations for Parascript.

About Parascript, LLC

The Parascript image analysis suite extracts meaningful information from images. Employing patented digital image analysis and pattern recognition technologies, the Parascript image analysis suite improves decision quality in medical imaging, postal and payment automation, fraud detection and forms processing operations. Parascript software processes over 100 billion imaged documents per year. Fortune 500 companies, postal operators, major government and financial institutions rely on Parascript products. Organizations include the U.S. Postal Service, Bowe Bell + Howell, CheckFree - now part of Fiserv, Elsag, Lockheed Martin, NCR, Siemens and Unisys. Parascript is online at http://www.parascript.com.

About BOWE BELL + HOWELL

At BOWE BELL + HOWELL, helping customers achieve success through innovative mailing and document management solutions is their number one priority. The company provides a wide breadth of cutting-edge processing and postal solutions that help customers increase productivity, decrease costs and reduce risk. Based in Wheeling, Ill., with operational centers in Durham, N.C., and Bethlehem, Penn., BOWE BELL + HOWELL has more than 70 years of industry experience developing superior equipment and software technologies. BOWE BELL + HOWELL proudly reinforces the value of its offerings with an industry-leading customer service network. To learn more about BOWE BELL + HOWELL, visit http://www.bowebellhowell.com.