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- Title
20/30 Hindsight: The Automatic Zipper.
- Authors
Ulvila, Jacob W.
- Abstract
This article focuses on the technical and economic analysis for using the single-line optical character reader (OCR) in a program of postal automation by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). In March 1984, Phase 1 of the program had been essentially completed, and the USPS was about to embark on Phase 2: $450 million was allocated, of which $363 million would be spent on new hardware. In 1980, when the USPS issues specifications for Phase 1 equipment, it was their opinion that the single-line optical character reader was the only proven equipment. During the time between the Phase 1 award and the plan for Phase 2, multi-line OCR equipment had been developed and operational units had become available, but the USPS was not interested. The USPS had not even subjected single-line and multi-line machines to equivalent testing on comparable mail, even though such a test had been proposed by a manufacturer of multi-line equipment. Fred Wood, project director of the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, recognized that the technical problem could be addressed as a decision analysis. The benefits from this analysis are difficult to quantify. At one level, it could reasonably be argued that the analysis saved $200 million. The USPS rejected the multi-line OCR technology before the analysis and endorsed it after the analysis.
- Subjects
UNITED States; OPTICAL character recognition devices; POSTAL service automation; DECISION making; UNITED States Postal Service; WOOD, Fred; OPTICAL computer equipment
- Publication
Interfaces, 1988, Vol 18, Issue 1, p74
- ISSN
0092-2102
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1287/inte.18.1.74