Automated Book Processing-machine

Valvan builds machine that sorts and prices used books

Valvan from Menen developed a book-sorting machine for a large thrift store chain in the US that sorts and prices more than 1,500 books per hour. The enormous efficiency gains that thrift stores and other used book sellers can achieve with this machine make the ABP machine a real game changer.

Streamlining the price and sorting process
Used books are a popular product in thrift stores. But sorting and pricing the books are very time-consuming jobs. Valvan, a machine builder from Menen, developed the Automated Book Processing machine (ABP), which automates the entire process, for a large thrift store chain in the U.S. After an initial manual sorting, the books are automatically cataloged, priced and labeled. The machine detects the books and retrieves specifications such as genre and price from a database of 55 million books. A robot then creates a new price tag.

1,500 books per hour
The ABP machine significantly speeds up the pricing and sorting process: it can process about 1,500 books per hour. The machine can also automatically distribute the priced books by genre. Not only does this take a lot of work off employees' shoulders, the new book stock is also ready to be shelved and sold much faster.