CEN/TS 16316:2012

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-september-2012
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Postal services - Open interface - Sortplan
Postalische Dienstleistungen - Offene Schnittstelle - Sortierplan
Services postaux - Interface ouverte - Plan de tri
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TS 16316:2012
ICS:
03.240 Poštne storitve Postal services
35.200 Vmesniška in povezovalna Interface and interconnection
oprema equipment
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
CEN/TS 16316
SPÉCIFICATION TECHNIQUE
TECHNISCHE SPEZIFIKATION
June 2012
ICS 03.240; 35.240.99
English Version
Postal services - Open interface - Sortplan
Services postaux - Interface ouverte - Plan de tri Postalische Dienstleistungen - Offene Schnittstelle -
Sortierplan
This Technical Specification (CEN/TS) was approved by CEN on 9 January 2012 for provisional application.

The period of validity of this CEN/TS is limited initially to three years. After two years the members of CEN will be requested to submit their
comments, particularly on the question whether the CEN/TS can be converted into a European Standard.

CEN members are required to announce the existence of this CEN/TS in the same way as for an EN and to make the CEN/TS available
promptly at national level in an appropriate form. It is permissible to keep conflicting national standards in force (in parallel to the CEN/TS)
until the final decision about the possible conversion of the CEN/TS into an EN is reached.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom.

EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

Management Centre: Avenue Marnix 17, B-1000 Brussels
© 2012 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TS 16316:2012: E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

Contents Page
Foreword .3
Introduction .4
1 Scope .5
2 Normative references .5
3 Terms and definitions .5
4 Format .6
5 Definition of sort plan concepts .6
5.1 Sort plan concepts general .6
5.2 Definition of SortingProducts .6
5.2.1 Item related .6
5.2.2 Machine related .7
5.3 Definition of Cards .7
5.4 Definition of Actions .7
5.4.1 Sort to outlets .7
5.4.2 Sequence mail .7
5.4.3 Print on label .8
5.4.4 Show on display .8
5.4.5 Print on mail item .8
5.4.6 Sweep .8
6 Structure of the sort plan file .8
6.1 Sort Plan .8
6.1.1 General .8
6.1.2 Flag .9
6.1.3 MailAttribute . 10
6.1.4 Card . 10
6.1.5 SortingProduct . 11
6.1.6 Destination . 11
6.1.7 CardRequest . 12
6.1.8 SpecialSort . 12
6.2 OutletGroup . 12
6.3 SweepGroup . 13
6.4 Action . 14
6.4.1 General considerations . 14
6.4.2 Sort . 14
6.4.3 Print . 15
6.4.4 Sweep . 15
7 Precedence rules . 15
7.1 General considerations . 15
7.2 Sorting Product . 16
7.3 Action . 16
8 Implementation chart . 16
Annex A (informative) XML data . 17
A.1 XML data structure . 17
A.2 Example of Destination Sort Plan . 29
A.3 Example of Sequence Sort Plan . 30

Foreword
This document (CEN/TS 16316:2012) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 331 “Postal
Services”, the secretariat of which is held by NEN.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. CEN [and/or CENELEC] shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
This document has been prepared under a mandate given to CEN by the European Commission and the
European Free Trade Association.
According to the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the following
countries are bound to announce this Technical Specification: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Introduction
In a very generic postal system architecture, an Information System manages the creation, production and life
cycle of sort plans. This Information System is also responsible for distributing sort plans to Sorting Machines.
Sorting machines use several configuration files. A sort plan is a kind of configuration file dedicated to the
description of sorting operations executed by a sorting machine. Sorting operations are mainly the assignment
of mail items to physical outlets, the display text and the tray labels. As both, the Information System and the
several types of Sorting Machines, have to interpret this sort plan file. This file format therefore is the interface
between them.
In order to optimise performance, there is a growing demand of the postal operators to combine parts of their
sorting automation equipment from different suppliers. In the past this has led to project-specific interfaces
being negotiated between one postal operator and one or multiple suppliers. These project-specific interfaces
were developed by the suppliers and maintained for an agreed period of time. However, this approach has
several disadvantages:
 the interface is derived from an interface that was not intended to be open;
 the interface is developed for a single project and works only in the context of that project (extra costs);
 each participating supplier has to implement the interface (multiple efforts);
 experience shows that integration of components with project-specific interfaces is complex and
expensive;
 project-specific interfaces are not integrated into the product line and once the initially agreed
maintenance period is over it may be difficult and expensive to maintain and/or may hinder the adoption
of equipment upgrades.
This has led to “open interfaces” defined by one supplier. Yet these still have the disadvantage of being in
product use only by one supplier.
Within a group of postal operators and suppliers, it was decided to develop a set of “open standard interfaces”
which will be developed by the suppliers and referred to by the postal operators. It was explained that the
benefits of these interfaces will be that they:
 are fixed in an international standard (with change control);
 are agreed and implemented by major suppliers;
 are agreed by customers and therefore used in calls for tenders;
 will result in net savings, higher initial development effort and consequent higher basic equipment prices
being more than offset by reduced project development, integration and maintenance costs;
 will minimize the need for project integration effort by reducing implementation timescales;
 will increase competition between suppliers by stimulating product improvements.
This technical specification is based on the "Common Sortplan Format" which was used in projects before this
standard was developed.
1 Scope
This Technical Specification specifies the sort plan file content and structure. It does not deal with other
configuration files in sorting machines nor is it applicable to the transport mechanism.
The content of a sort plan allows the specification of the following capabilities:
 sorting by address and non-address attributes;
 sorting of code ranges;
 sorting of rejects;
 support of display and label texts;
 dynamic outlet groups;
 sorting to more than one outlet;
 overflow handling;
 support of cut off time before dispatch;
 sequence sorting;
 provide volume information (option);
 support of Cards;
 possibility to add simple manufacturer specific information;
 support of various sort code formats and non-address attributes;
 support of various display and label formats;
 check against characteristics of the sorting machine.
2 Normative references
There are no normative references for this document.
3 Terms and definitions
3.1
configuration file
one of the different files specifying actions to be processed by a sorting machine during operation time
3.2
configuration file set
complete set of c
...