The Multisort sorting system will provide plants that sort lower volumes of mail manually with a "much higher throughput and advanced integrity", according to the company.

The machine, which can run at speeds of up to 2,000 pieces per hour, is manually fed, but the rest of the sorting cycle – image capturing, printing and routing – is automated.

Multisort provides track and traceability for every mailpiece and automatically scans and routes mailpieces in a single pass. An in-line label printer applies an individual label to every mailpiece and a built-in reporting system enables customer invoices to be produced on a per-piece level.

It can handle padded envelopes, standard paper, corrugated, Tyvek, tabbed and untabbed magazines, bound items and polywrap material from C6 to C4 size.

Stefan Berndt, sortation product manager at Pitney Bowes, said: "The Multisort System occupies a unique position in today’s mail handling landscape. We are bringing cost-effective automation to a marketplace where mail sorting is typically conducted manually.

"We have three key target markets for the Multisort: outbound mail for private post organisations; inbound mail for larger businesses that require mail to be sorted down to department level; and inter-office mail for large businesses or facilities."