JP2002154621A - Sorting system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently perform packing work of articles into a collection box. SOLUTION: Trays 5 conveyed by a conveyor 4 are sorted into conveyors 10 per work station by a sorter 6. Bar codes of the tray 5 are read by a bar code reader 9 after sorting by the sorter 6, and the collection box 22 in which articles are charged is delivered from an automated storage and retrieval warehouse unit 12. The collection box in which the articles are charged is warehoused into the warehouse unit 12 again until it becomes full.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for sorting articles by putting them into boxes.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In order to sort a plurality of types of articles for each delivery destination, it is known that necessary articles are taken out of articles being conveyed by a conveyor by a sorter and put into a box. It is also known that articles are stored in a picking device, a delivery box is conveyed through the lower part of the picking device, necessary articles are put in necessary boxes, and a necessary amount of articles are collected in the boxes. ing.

[0003]

In these sorting systems, sorting is difficult if the number of destinations is large. For example, in a system in which a conveyor and a sorter are combined, it is necessary to provide a number of sorters corresponding to the number of destinations.
When it reaches the order of 000, it becomes impractical to provide sorting equipment. In a system using a picking device, if the number of delivery destinations is large, it takes time to collect products, and it becomes difficult to control the picking device.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A basic object of the present invention is to make it possible to reliably and easily sort articles to a large number of delivery destinations for each delivery destination and put them into a box.
3). An additional object of the present invention is to ensure that articles can be sorted for each delivery destination even when a plurality of work positions are provided. An additional problem with the invention according to claim 3 is that even when there are a large number of delivery destinations and the goods are conveyed to each delivery place with a time interval, the goods can be sorted for each delivery destination easily and reliably. Is to do so.

[0005]

A sorting system according to the present invention comprises a work station for putting articles into boxes provided for each delivery destination, a conveying means for conveying the articles to the work station, and a discrimination of the articles being conveyed. Determining means for searching for a corresponding box, and storage means for storing the box, transporting the searched box from the storage means to the work station, and after inputting the article, to the storage means It is something to return.

Preferably, a plurality of the work positions are provided, and the transfer means is a first transfer means; a second transfer means which branches from the first transfer means and transfers the article to the work position; And means for sorting the articles from the means to the second conveying means, and the discriminating means is arranged so as to discriminate the articles being conveyed by the second conveying means (claim 2).

Particularly preferably, the storage means is constituted by a plurality of re-enterable automatic warehouse units, the work position is provided near a station of the automatic warehouse unit, and an automatic storage unit for storing a box for a delivery destination is provided. The sorting means is controlled so as to convey articles to a work position of the warehouse unit (claim 3).

[0008]

According to the present invention, the article is conveyed to the work station, the box to the corresponding delivery destination is searched in response to the search, and the article is conveyed from the storage means to the work station. Returned to the means. Therefore, in the work station, the articles can be reliably and easily sorted simply by putting the articles into the box.
Especially when there are many destinations and many boxes,
Since the box corresponding to the article is searched and transported to the work position, sorting is not difficult. In addition, since the boxes after the articles are put back into the storage means, there is no problem even if the articles are intermittently transported to the work station, and there is no need to collectively pick up the articles for each delivery destination.

In the invention according to claim 2, a plurality of work stations are provided, the goods are sorted by the work stations by the sorting means, the goods are conveyed, and the goods are discriminated after passing through the sorting means. For this reason, the article actually conveyed to the work station can be determined a predetermined time before arrival at the work station, and even when there are a large number of work stations, the corresponding box can be reliably conveyed to the work station at a predetermined timing.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the storage means comprises a plurality of automatic warehouse units for storing boxes, and a work station is provided near a station of each automatic warehouse unit to store required boxes. The goods are sorted and transported to the work station of the automatic warehouse unit. Since the automatic warehouse unit can store a large number of boxes and store and retrieve at a high speed, even if the delivery destinations are extremely large and the goods are sent at intervals, it can be sorted quickly. Also, there is no need for an intermediate electric bogie system or the like that connects the automatic warehouse unit and the work station.

[0011]

1 to 5 show an embodiment and its modifications.
FIG. 1 shows a layout of a main part of the sorting system according to the embodiment. Reference numeral 2 denotes a bulk picking area for picking individual bulk articles from a case or the like. Reference numeral 4 denotes a conveyor, which is a long-distance conveyor connecting the bulk picking area 2 and a number of work stations, and picked articles are conveyed, for example, placed on a tray 5. A slip is placed on the tray 5 together with the articles, and the article number and quantity of the articles on the tray are described. The tray 5 is provided with a barcode indicating the tray number.

A plurality of sorters 6 are provided for branching the tray 5 from the conveyor 4, and the bar code reader 8 at the most upstream side reads the bar code on the tray 5 to determine to which work station the branch is to be performed. Then, according to the bar code read by the bar code reader 8, the tray 5 is moved by the sorter 6 to the work conveyor 10 for each work station.
Branch to Downstream of the sorter 6, there is a bar code reader 9 for each work conveyor 10, and the work conveyor 1
When the tray 5 branches to 0, the barcode is read again.

Reference numeral 12 is an automatic warehouse unit, 14 is its rack, and 16 is a stacker crane. Reference numeral 18 denotes a picking conveyor, which also serves as a loading / unloading station of the automatic warehouse unit 12. Reference numeral 20 denotes a work terminal for each work station, which displays a tray number to be put next and the number of articles on the tray (the number of puts). Further, the work terminal 20 has three switches, that is, loading is completed, the loading is completed and the collection box is full, and the collection box is full before loading and the loading is impossible. Then, the operator of each work station checks the tray number and the number of inputs, inputs the articles into the collection box 22, and inputs a result indicating that the input is completed, the input is full, or the input is full and the input is impossible. I do.

The work station 21 is a work conveyor 1
0, the picking conveyor 18 and the work terminal 20. The number of the working conveyors 10 is equal to the number of the picking conveyors 18, and in the embodiment, the number of the work stations 21 is equal to the number of the automatic warehouse units 12. It is. However, if a plurality of picking conveyors are provided in one automatic warehouse unit 12, the number of work stations 21 can be increased accordingly.

A collection box 22 is provided for each delivery destination and is a box to which a bar code indicating a box number is attached, and is stored in the rack 14. When the bar code reader 9 reads the bar code on the tray 5 in the work conveyor 10, the bar code is conveyed to the picking conveyor 18 by the stacker crane 16. After the articles are loaded, the collection box 22 is re-stocked in the rack 14. When the collection box 22 is full and shipped to the packing place, the stacker crane 16 transports the collection box 22 to a station on the opposite side of the automatic warehouse unit 12 from FIG.

Reference numeral 24 denotes a CPU (control processing unit).
D (tray number), the article number and quantity of the articles on the tray 5, and the delivery destination are stored. As for the relationship with the automatic warehouse unit 12, a list of the location (shelf address) of the collection box 22 for each delivery destination, the delivery destination, the article number and the quantity of articles in the collection box is stored. The barcode reader 8 reads the barcode on the tray 5 in front of the sorter 6 on the most upstream side, and transmits the result to the CPU 24. CPU2
4 searches the automatic warehouse unit storing the collection box to the corresponding delivery destination, and controls the sorter 6 so that the tray 5 is transported to the work station facing the relevant automatic warehouse unit.

It is not efficient to store a collection box in the automatic warehouse unit 12 for a delivery destination with extremely low delivery frequency. Therefore, for some delivery destinations, there is a possibility that there is no collection box in any automatic warehouse unit.
In such a case, for example, an empty collection box stored in one of the automatic warehouse units is assigned to the delivery destination, and the tray 5 is sorted to a work station having the automatic warehouse unit. In this case, which automatic warehouse unit uses the empty collection box is determined, for example, by giving priority to the station with the least amount of work in the work station.

In relation to the bar code reader 9, the CPU 24 transmits the tray numbers sorted by the sorter 6 from the bar code reader 9, and instructs the automatic warehouse unit 12 to take out the corresponding collection box. If a tray to be transported to another work station is erroneously sent to the work station, the CPU 24 displays an error on the work terminal and instructs, for example, a process of manually transporting the tray to the correct work station.

The CPU 24 reports from the automatic warehouse unit that the pick-up box 18 has been picked up and re-entered, and stores the number of pick-up boxes on the picking conveyor 18 and the box number. Similarly, the number of trays on the work conveyor 10, the tray number,
The contents of the items on the tray are stored. Then, the number of the tray to be loaded next and the number of loaded trays are displayed on each work terminal 20.

FIG. 2 shows the file structure of the CPU 24 and the connection with peripheral devices. The tray file 26 stores the data of the tray number of each tray, the product number, quantity, and shipping destination (delivery destination) of the articles on the tray. The box file 28 stores the shipping destination and shelf address of each collection box (data on which automatic warehouse unit has the collection box at which position), and a list of the article numbers and quantities of the articles in the collection box. Have been. And CPU as described above
The bar code readers 24 are connected to the bar code readers 8 and 9, the sorter 6, the stacker crane 16, the picking conveyor 18, and the work terminal 20.

FIG. 3 shows a procedure of an operation of putting articles in the tray into the collection box. The barcode on the tray is read by the barcode reader 8 in FIG. 1 to determine a work station. If a collection box has not been created, there is an empty collection box, and a work station with a small amount of work is allocated to this tray. According to the determined work station,
The trays are sorted by the sorter, and the barcodes of the trays are read again by the barcode reader 9 shown in FIG. 1 on the work conveyor. The collection box to which the articles in the read tray are to be loaded is searched, and the goods are retrieved from the automatic warehouse unit, and the number of loaded articles and the tray number are displayed on the work terminal. If the collection box is full before the loading, the box is transported to a packing place and loaded into a spare collection box provided at each work station. Even if the collection box is full after the loading is completed, the collection box is transported to the packing area. If there is still a space in the collection box after loading, the collection box is re-stocked in the automatic warehouse unit. These operations are sequentially processed for each combination of the tray and the collection box.

FIG. 4 shows the tray 5 on the work conveyor 10.
And the collection box 22 on the picking conveyor 18. When the tray 5 is sorted by the sorter 6 and appears on the work conveyor 10, the barcode of the tray is read by the barcode reader 9, and the corresponding collection box is taken out of the automatic warehouse unit 12. For this reason, the tray on the work conveyor 10 and the collection box on the picking conveyor 18 have a 1: 1 correspondence, and if these are combined from the first pair and the articles on the tray are put into the collection box,
I can put it in correctly. The empty trays generated by the loading are returned to the bulk picking area 2 as appropriate, and the collection box after the loading is re-stocked if there is a space, and shipped to the packing place if it is full.

FIG. 5 shows a modified example. 30 is an electric trolley system, 32 is an electric trolley for transporting the collection box 22, 34 is a conveyor provided on the work station 35 side, and 36 is an automatic warehouse. Outgoing conveyor of unit 12,
Reference numeral 38 denotes a storage conveyor. In the modification of FIG. 5, the automatic warehouse unit 12 and the work station 35 do not need to correspond to each other in a one-to-one correspondence, and the number of the work stations 35 can be increased or decreased in accordance with the cycle time of loading and unloading at the automatic warehouse unit 12. In addition, since the collection boxes can be supplied to the work station 35 from an arbitrary automatic warehouse unit, it is sufficient to sort the articles so that the work amount is substantially uniform to each work station 35, and the sort of the articles is simplified. However, in the system of FIG. 5, the electric bogie system 30 is required between the automatic warehouse unit 12 and the work station 35, and there is a problem in cost.

In the embodiment and the modified examples, the example in which the articles are conveyed by the conveyor and sorted into the work conveyor by the sorter is shown. However, the sorter is not limited to the one in which the articles are extruded by a bar or the like. It may be one that sorts into a plurality of work conveyors. Although the collection boxes are stored in an automatic warehouse, they may be stored in a flat storage warehouse or the like and transported between the work stations by a hand lift or the like.

The operation and effect of the embodiment shown in FIGS. The tray 5 is managed by a bar code and sorted into a plurality of work stations.
, So if you have an extremely large number of delivery destinations and goods to the same
The efficiency of the sorting operation does not decrease. The work content at each work station is to put the articles on the tray into the collection box according to the display on the work terminal 20, which is extremely simple. A bar code reader 9 is provided from the automatic warehouse unit 12.
Is started when the bar code is read at the time of, and after a predetermined time, the collection box is delivered to the tray where the loading operation is actually performed at the work station. On the other hand, for example, when the retrieval of the collection box is started at the time when the barcode is read by the barcode reader 8 on the most upstream side, the collection box is retrieved from the upstream work station and the downstream work station. The transfer to the work station cannot be changed during the transfer by the conveyor 4 depending on the availability of the work station, and furthermore, it is difficult to perform processing when an error occurs in the sorting by the sorter 6. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a layout of a main part in a sorting system according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a control system according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a sorting procedure in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a flow of a tray to a work station and a flow of a collection box in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a layout of a main part in a sorting system according to a modified example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Bulk picking area 4 Conveyor 5 Tray 6 Sorter 8, 9 Barcode reader 10 Work conveyor 12 Automatic warehouse unit 14 Rack 16 Stacker crane 18 Picking conveyor 20 Work terminal 21, 35 Work station 22 Collection box 24 CPU 26 Tray file 28 Box File 30 Electric bogie system 32 Electric bogie 34 Conveyor 36 Outgoing conveyor 38 Receiving conveyor

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Taiji Hida 4-20-12 Matsugaoka, Matsubara-shi, Osaka Shady Corporation F-term (reference) 3F022 EE01 EE05 FF01 HH13 JJ07 LL12 LL31 MM13 MM22 MM36 PP04

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A work station for putting an article into a box provided for each delivery destination, a conveying means for conveying the article to the work station, and an article being conveyed is identified to search for a corresponding box. And a storage unit for storing the box, wherein the retrieved box is transported from the storage unit to the work station, and is returned to the storage unit after an article is input. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of said work positions are provided, and said transfer means is a first transfer means; a second transfer means which branches from said first transfer means and transfers the article to said work position;
2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: sorting means for sorting the articles from the conveying means to the second conveying means, and wherein the discriminating means is arranged to discriminate the articles being conveyed by the second conveying means. 1. Sorting system. 3. An automatic warehouse unit comprising a plurality of automatic warehouse units capable of re-entering the storage means, providing the work position near a station of the automatic warehouse unit, and further storing a box for a delivery destination. 3. The sorting system according to claim 2, wherein the sorting unit is controlled so as to convey the articles to the work position.