Sorter: Modular

Convergent Library Technologies

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Automated Material Handling System

Automate Your Manual Activities with Market-Leading Library Sorting Solutions.

Your Library can significantly improve circulation while reducing cost and the need for physical handling of material with the latest generation in Automated Material Handling Systems.  Our sortation solutions are sustainable and modular.  The components can be configured and reconfigured to your current and changing requirements.  Our system provides fast, accurate, and highly reliable quality to increase efficiency and performance to libraries whether it be a single facility or a large central sorting and distribution centre.  Library book sorting has never been easier.

Benefits of AMH

Immediate Check-in greatly enhances circulation turnaround time

Immediate check-in of materials returned by library customers combined with high-speed library book sorting makes sure that materials in demand reach the next customer as fast as possible. Quick turnaround results in holds being fulfilled faster and reduces need for multiple copies of high demand items, which in turn helps your acquisition budget!

Minimum Physical Contact

Automated material handling solutions minimize the number of touches on materials. By implementing automated and smart book return and sorting solutions, human contact is minimized keeping your environment and community healthy.

Staff time can be focused on transformational activities

At the heart of every Library is people: staff and customers.  While certain transactions in the library can provide great opportunities for customer engagement, others have lower value.  By reducing the amount of time staff require to handle returns and holds, you not only provide more opportunities for staff to focus on higher value activities that build library users for life, but you also reduce the physical stress of lifting materials and staff absences due to workplace injuries.

Key building blocks of our AMH system

Self-Return Kiosk:  Library Mate™ 1200

Streamline your library operations with the Library Mate™ 1200, a compact and cost-efficient self-return kiosk. By seamlessly integrating with the Sort Mate™ AMH sorting system, this innovative solution empowers customers to return materials quickly and independently, freeing your valuable staff from repetitive tasks. With the Library Mate™ software, material status updates are instantaneously communicated to the ILS/LMS.

   

The user-friendly touchscreen interface offers a choice of languages and guides patrons effortlessly through the return process. The latest Library Mate™ software features specially designed easy-to-read fonts and voice guidance, ensuring a barrier-free and comfortable experience for all users.

 

Staff Station:  Ergo Staff

 

The Ergo Staff™ 1200 prioritizes the comfort and well-being of staff members during sorting tasks.  Its countertop can be easily adjusted in height, allowing staff members to work in a comfortable and ergonomic standing or seated position. This flexibility ensures that staff can work efficiently without discomfort.

     

With a remarkable capacity to handle up to 2,250 materials per hour, the Ergo Staff™ 1200 ensures high operational capacity, ideal for libraries with a large volume of materials to process. This capacity enables streamlined workflows and increased productivity, contributing to efficient sorting operations.

 

At this station, staff operators can place the system into RFID tag writing mode, allowing for items to be tagged-on-the-fly efficiently when necessary.  They can also select their choice of whether to print slips for holds and how to handle the item.

 

Sort Mate

Once inducted, returned items are sorted and delivered to the proper destination with a 99.9% accuracy.  The Sort Mate™ is highly configurable and can be easily expanded and modified to suit future changing needs.  If you decide to augment the system with additional sort points to accommodate new service points such outreach kiosks (like NovelBranch!), a new Sort Mate™ module can be added and running within a few hours – easily completed during off-hours with no impact to patrons and minimal to staff.

The Sort Mate™ is a linear belt sorter consisting of a straight conveying section, on which each piece of library material is transported. The conveying section consists of 6 parallel belts conveying the material to the correct discharge. The round belts on the sorter provide reliable transport of soft materials. At each sorting system discharge, pop-up transverse rollers (diverters) are mounted which lift electrically when items pass over them. When the item is lifted, the rollers roll right or left, directing the items into destination bins, carts or totes placed on either side of the sorting system.

Many features to enhance staff efficiency

Remotely monitor and customize AMH

A web-based management and operation software, Sorter Controller™ allows for central monitoring, remote sorter control and instant updates from any linked device.

Tote check-in provides exceptional return on investment

In a library with a central processing facility, the tote check-in server might be the most valuable piece of the entire AMH system, offering more in return than any other component.  The effects can be felt in every branch and will positively affect every branch, even ones without a sorter.  When items are distributed from a central sort facility to branch locations utilizing the design, it is possible to manifest each item as it is sorted to a tote.  The tote can then be transferred to the branch location, where checking in the 25-35 items contained within the tote will be accomplished by scanning only the single barcode on the tote. The tote check-in server will also identify any items that changed status while they were in transit. These items can be sent to the hold shelf or back to the central sort for reprocessing.  Utilizing the tote check-in server eliminates the repetitive exercise of handling each item in the tote − scanning and returning to shelf. 

 
Collaborative, Skilled, Experienced Engineers Design Smart Systems
 

Having the right building blocks is critical to a superior AMH project, but having the right team to provide guidance, design expertise and engineering knowledge is essential.  Our team works hand-in-hand with the manufacturer, Lyngsoe Systems whose systems and team are market leaders globally.

Whether you require a small modular system for returns, holds and exceptions or a large system with a conveyor, multiple induction points, bi-directional converyors, one hundred destinations, sortation bins and tote management to expedite distribution to branches, our solution can deliver.