Gains in a United States Postal Service Handwritten Improvement Program (HIP) are most noticeable during the holiday mailing season. At a time when Americans are expected to mail more than 20 billion mail pieces, address recognition equipment from Lockheed Martin Systems Integration - Owego is helping to put letters into the processing and distribution streams faster.

In fact, advancements completed this past year in handwritten address recognition are boosting the successful read rate of first-pass, hand-addressed envelopes to 75 percent this holiday season compared to 63 percent in 1999. This is a dramatic gain over the 3 percent accuracy read rate that existed four years ago before the HIP was initiated. In addition, advancements made by Lockheed Martin during the past two years has increased the recognition capability for the most difficult to read machine printed addresses by more than 14 percent.

The catalyst behind these constant address recognition improvements is an award-winning team from the company's Distribution Technologies business. The U.S. Postal Service acknowledged the dedication and teamwork of this group by presenting its Remote Computer Reader and Handwritten Improvement Program (RCR/HIP) development team with an Engineering Excellence Award.

In praising the team's efforts since 1997, Phil Baldwin, manager of headquarters purchasing for the U.S. Postal Service, noted that "everything this team said it would do, it did -- and then some. Its work on this particular program is a true benchmark in our organization and the bridge we have relied on to transition to quality driven automation programs."

Lockheed Martin improvements have allowed the U.S. Postal Service to save more than $400 million in annual operating costs, while helping to improve service. Since its inception, the cumulative savings achieved by the RCR/HIP program are well over $1 billion.

"While the advancements delivered by our award-winning address recognition team are continuous throughout the year, helping to get our greetings and gifts to our family and friends during holiday mailing season makes us appreciate their engineering expertise and algorithm advancements even more," said Mike Schoultz, president of Distribution Technologies.

For information on Lockheed Martin Distribution Technologies visit: http://www.lmdtech.com/

SOURCE: Lockheed Martin Systems Integration - Owego