Abstract: An arm assembly for gripping a sheet of material including jaws and a sensor assembly for detecting a change in the thickness of the material gripped between the jaws. A sensor is mounted to the side of the arm and a lever is operatively associated with the jaws for pivotal movement towards and away from the sensor in response to a change in the thickness of the material gripped between the jaws. In one embodiment, a magnet is mounted to the tip of the lever and the sensor is a Hall-effect sensor which is responsive to a change in the distance between the sensor and the magnet.

Abstract: A stand-alone method and system is provided for processing the contents of a plurality of envelopes, and includes at least an opening device, an image acquisition device and a control device. The opening device opens the envelopes on at least one side forming opened envelopes, thereby exposing the contents thereof for extraction. The image acquisition device is in operable communication with the opening device and is used to acquire an image of the contents and store that image in digital form in a file. Finally, the control device is operably connected to at least the opening device and image acquisition device, whereby when the image of the contents are acquired from one envelope, a next envelope is opened and a new file is created.