JP2743097B2 - Stowage planning method for goods - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention employs an electronic computer to arrange and load a free-form (irregular-shaped) article on a container such as a pallet in order to efficiently load the article onto a container such as a pallet. Regarding the method of planning the loading of goods,
In particular, the present invention relates to a stowage planning support system that improves loading efficiency when stacking a plurality of articles of the same type.

[Conventional technology]

When many types of articles are stacked on a container such as a pallet, it is desirable to increase the loading efficiency (sum of the volume of the stacked articles / volume of the container) as much as possible and reduce the number of required containers. There is a limit to how to determine the arrangement of articles based on experience.

Therefore, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 60-101607 discloses a method of calculating the arrangement and the order of stacking rectangular parallelepiped articles in a container with high loading efficiency by an electronic computer.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

However, for an article that is not a rectangular parallelepiped, that is, an odd-shaped article, a method of calculating such an arrangement or stacking order is not yet known.

Therefore, as a prerequisite for the stowage plan for free-form goods,
As shown in FIG. 2, in the depth direction of a container 1 such as a pallet, stackable articles 2 having a length of at least half the depth of the container are placed in a row in the container 1, and the articles 2 are placed thereon.
Shall be stacked.

Articles are stored by type in a warehouse, for example, and when there is a request to leave a group of articles, the order of the group of articles is determined, the containers are selected, and the containers are loaded according to the loading order. When the container is full, select the next container and plan the stowage.

In this way, when the loading plan is completed up to the last article, a list is output, and each container is loaded on a forklift or the like according to the list, and travels around the warehouse to collect the articles.

In this case, it is assumed that only one row of articles is loaded in the depth direction from the viewpoint of handling efficiency and safety. Under such a condition, there is no fear of collapse of the load in the depth direction. Therefore, as long as the container 1 has columns on the left and right, even the odd-shaped article 2 can be stacked.

As a method of expressing the area occupied by an article, there is a method of creating a rectangular mesh on a two-dimensional surface and expressing a position by a mesh number. A method of expressing a position by creating a mesh on a floor is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 60-167804.

Since the present invention plans the arrangement of the stack of articles, a rectangular mesh is applied to the cross section of the container as shown in FIG.

The mesh is represented by coordinates in the horizontal (X-axis) direction and the vertical (Y-axis) direction, and the lower left is the origin (0, 0) of the mesh.

The number of meshes is a value obtained by dividing the cross-sectional area of the container by the area of one mesh. The smaller the number of meshes, the smaller the memory capacity and the faster the calculation speed.

However, when the area of one mesh is increased, when a part of an article hangs on a certain mesh, it is assumed that the entire mesh is occupied by the article, so that the loading efficiency is reduced.

As a countermeasure, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-167804, a new mesh is created each time an article is arranged, based on the corners of the arranged article.

This requires time to create a new mesh, and causes a reduction in processing speed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an article stowage planning method capable of reducing the memory capacity by increasing the size of one mesh as much as possible, while speeding up the processing by eliminating the need to re-create the mesh and at the same time increasing the loading efficiency. To provide.

[Means for solving the problem]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a method for storing a free-form article in a row in the depth direction of the container, based on at least information on the dimensions and the order of the articles to be loaded. In a method for planning the stowage of articles whose arrangement is determined by a computer, an article master table for storing data necessary for stowage, a container master table for storing container specifications, an article table for specifying articles to be stowed, and the depth of the container A mesh table that shows a cross section orthogonal to the direction by a mesh and an article deployment table that stores the calculation result of stowage are constructed in the memory of the computer, and are stacked from the article master table, the container master table, and the article table. Determine the specifications of the goods to be loaded, the specifications of the container and the specifications of the mesh, and load the goods to be loaded from the article master table. The size of the rectangular mesh circumscribing the article is determined by examining the increase in the empty dimension when combining according to the number of pieces, determining whether or not to combine the pieces, and determining the size of the actual article in the horizontal direction. And the actual size position of the tip of the arranged article is also determined, and it is determined whether the other end of the arranged article is located from one of the left and right ends of the cross section and the other end of the arranged article exceeds the other end of the loading space. If it does not exceed the other end, it is arranged on the mesh table and the container code and stacking order of the goods loaded this time are input to the article development table. The present invention proposes a method for planning the stowage of articles, which continues to place the articles until there are no more articles to be stowed or the mesh is full.

An empty portion on the other end side when returning from the other end to above the one end can be designated as a non-stackable portion.

It is also possible to express the dimensions of the article by the dimensions of a rectangular parallelepiped mesh circumscribing the article.

In any case, when the difference between the heights of the meshes at the upper ends of the plurality of arranged articles is equal to or less than a predetermined value, the height of the upper ends of the plurality of articles is represented by the highest mesh height, and the next-stage article is represented. May be determined.

[Action]

A rectangular parallelepiped circumscribing the article is used to express the dimensions of the free-form article. Since the longitudinal direction of the rectangular parallelepiped is oriented in the depth direction of the container, and the depth dimension of the container is selected to be larger than the depth dimension of the rectangular parallelepiped, the problem of the loading efficiency is that the article 2 is not formed in a cross section when the container 1 is viewed from the front. 2 that can be arranged
It comes down to the problem of dimension.

The data of the goods to be taken out of the warehouse include at least the article code number indicating the kind of the article, the number, the width and height of the cross section, the length,
It includes data on whether the loading direction can be changed, the loading order specified by the request source, and the location (location number) in the warehouse. The data of the container on which these articles are loaded includes at least the width, height, and length of the loadable space of the container. When the data of the goods to be loaded is input, the type of the container is determined while checking the length between the goods and the container.

Next, the stacking order is determined in consideration of the stacking order, the location number, and the size of the article of the request source, and the articles are stacked according to the order, for example, from left to right of the container. Since location numbers are assigned according to the forklift's directions, if articles are placed in the warehouse in the order of the larger articles in principle, if articles are loaded on the forklift in the order of the location numbers, the articles will be sorted from the largest to the smallest. As a result, it is possible to carry out good loading that is difficult to collapse and to reduce the distance (flow line) that the forklift moves while collecting articles.

In order to increase the loading efficiency, it is important how articles can be arranged without any gaps in the horizontal direction. In the last space at the right end of the first stage, articles are searched for and loaded in the space. Although the location number will be later, if the second row is stacked from the left side, usually, the goods specified on the right end of the first row before the second row is stacked directly above the rightmost article of the first row So you don't have to go back.

If the left-most unloading area becomes large, articles cannot be stacked thereon, so it is necessary to pay particular attention so that no unloading portion occurs in the lateral direction.

Therefore, in the lateral direction, in addition to designating the position in mesh units, actual dimensions are used so that no useless space is generated between the articles.

However, in the vertical direction, it is necessary to evaluate the empty cross-sectional area for stacking the upper step, and considering the circumstances such as securing the area to stack on the upper step even if some steps are ignored. , Accuracy is not as important as in the horizontal direction. Further, when the actual dimensions are managed in the vertical direction, the effect of meshing is lost and the data amount is significantly increased. Therefore, the actual dimensions are not managed in the vertical direction.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the relationship between the dimensions of an article and the mesh occupied by the article in one embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 21 is a projected view in a cross-sectional direction of an article to be loaded first. The mesh size is lm × lm. When the dimension 4 of the article is expressed in mesh units, it is 4.5 in the X-axis direction and 2.6 in the Y-axis direction.
It is. At this time, the area occupied by the article 21 is a rectangle 5 whose vertex is the origin and the coordinates (5, 3). The next article 22,
The number of meshes on the right from the mesh coordinates (6,0) is counted, and if there is a space to be arranged, the mesh is arranged.

The articles are sequentially arranged and repeated until an article that cannot be arranged on the right mesh is generated. If the article cannot be arranged, the article is skipped, it is checked whether the next article can be arranged, and this is repeated. If there is no article that can be arranged, the remaining space is regarded as an unstackable part, the lowest part in the second stage is searched, and it is examined whether or not the unstacked article can be arranged.

If the level difference with the adjacent part is smaller than a certain level, the space based on the higher one is set as the object of stacking.

Such a procedure is repeated until articles cannot be loaded due to height restrictions.

In this case, since it is desirable to place as many articles as possible on each step, not the mesh dimension 5 but the actual dimension lx is calculated in the lateral direction of the article 21 to save ₁₁ minutes. That is, as shown by the thick arrows, gather to the left an article 22 by l _1.

FIG. 4 shows the configuration of an embodiment of a computer system for executing the method for planning the packing of articles according to the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 6 denotes an electronic computer, which includes a CPU 61 and a main memory 62.
, An input / output circuit 63, and a bus 64. As peripheral devices, a keyboard 71 for inputting control signals, a floppy disk driver 72 for outputting calculated stowage data and the like so that other computers can use it offline,
There are an auxiliary memory 73, a printer 74 for printing out calculation results, a CRT 75, and the like.

In the main memory 62, a program area 621 of the CPU 61,
Article master table Tm area 622 and container master table T
There are a p area 623, an article table Tt area 624, an article development table Ta area 625, and a mesh table Tl area 626.

In carrying out the stowage plan, first the auxiliary memory 73
, The item master table Tm and the container master table Tp are transferred to the main memory 62.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the configuration of the article master table Tm employed in this embodiment. The article master table Tm is a table that stores all data required for stowage for all types of articles with an article code, and for articles to be stowed, if only the article code and the number are input, the product The data required for attachment is the goods master table Tm
From.

In the case of a deformed article, unlike the case of a rectangular parallelepiped, when a plurality of articles or a plurality of kinds of articles are combined, the volume may be smaller than the sum of the volumes of all the articles. This is because the dimensions of a deformed article are indicated by the dimensions of a rectangular parallelepiped circumscribing the article, so that the volume of the rectangular parallelepiped circumscribing the combined article is smaller than the sum of the respective volumes.

In addition to the article code, there are also horizontal, vertical, and length dimensions, a space saving amount when two pieces are combined, that is, a space dimension increase amount, a space dimension increase amount when three pieces are combined, a location number, and rotation data. The rotation data is represented, for example, as 0 when rotation is impossible, 1 when rotation is possible vertically and horizontally, and 2 when the direction can be changed not only vertically and horizontally but also in the length direction.

In addition, there are an item name group indicating a classification of an article, an assortment order to be stored when requested by a shipper, and the like.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the configuration of the container master table Tp.
The container master table Tp is a table that stores the specifications of the container, and includes a container code, and inner and outer dimensions of width, length, and length.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the configuration of the article table Tt for specifying articles to be stowed. The goods table Tt is a shipper code,
It consists of an article code and a number, and stores the type and number of articles to be loaded and the shipper.

FIG. 8 shows an example of the configuration of the article deployment table Ta. The article deployment table Ta is a table for storing the results of the stowage calculation, and includes an article code, a shipper code, a location number, a container code, a stacking order, and the like. From this table, the printer 74 can use the printer 74 to print labels for each article according to the order of data and use the labels to attach the labels to the articles or to collect the goods according to the stacking order.

FIG. 9 shows an example of the configuration of the mesh table Tl. Mesh table Tl is 0 or 1 for all meshes
Part of the mesh where the goods are stacked
1 is stored in the mesh of 32 and the unstackable portion 31, and 0 is stored in the meshes of the other portions.

FIG. 10 shows an example of a flowchart in the case where a stowage plan is supported using these hardware and tables.

In step 100, the article master table Tm and the container master table Tp stored in the auxiliary memory 73 are read into the areas 622 and 623 of the main memory.

In step 101, the floppy disk driver 72
The article table Tt is read into the area 624 of the main memory 62. As a result, the specification of the article to be loaded and the specification of the container are known. There are two methods for determining the specifications of the container: a method of automatically determining the length based on the length of the article, and a method of determining the specifications based on the surrounding conditions.

When the specifications of the container are determined, one article is selected at step 103 after step 200, and the goods are stowed, and the result is stored. The procedure of this part will be described in detail later.

Next, after step 300, it is checked in step 104 whether all the articles have been stowed. If not completed, the loading efficiency of the container is determined in step 105, and it is checked whether the efficiency exceeds a predetermined value. If the load efficiency does not exceed the predetermined load efficiency, the process proceeds to step 200 to select and load the next article. On the other hand, if it exceeds, the loading of the container is finished, and the process goes to step 102 to determine the type of the next container. If the loading of all the articles has been completed in step 104, the loading is terminated in step 106.

The details of the procedure for packing one article in step 103 will be described with reference to FIG. Depart from step 200, step 201
Select the goods to be packed with. If there is a packing order specified by the shipper, it will be followed, otherwise, the next item to be loaded will be decided according to the location number.

Next, in step 202, the lowest space is searched. As a method, using the mesh table Tl, scan right from the origin, scan from the left end of the upper row when it comes to the right end, and search for the coordinates of the mesh in which 0 data is stored first . The coordinates of the obtained mesh are stored as the starting point of the next scan.

Next, a range in which the width of the height, that is, 0 continues is obtained.
In addition, the difference between the height of the space before and after the space is obtained, and if the difference is, for example, within 2 in the coordinates of the mesh, the planes are merged according to the higher one. That is, dents below the higher plane are ignored.

For example, in the example of FIG. 9, first, the mesh coordinates (14,
In 3), 0 is found, and since the difference in height from the left plane is 2, the data up to 4 on the Y axis is changed to 1 and the mesh coordinates (0,5) to (M-1,5) The upper part of the mesh above is the stowage space.

Next, the articles are arranged in the space thus obtained.
In step 203, the article is arranged at the leftmost position in the space, and the X coordinate of the right end of the article arranged in step 204 is obtained.

How to determine the X coordinate will be described with reference to FIG. The X coordinate on the left side of the space under consideration is the X of the mesh
The coordinates Xn and the free dimension ln in the mesh are displayed.

Here, the mesh X coordinate Xn + 1 at the right end of the article when the article having the lateral dimension Xa is stacked is a value obtained by rounding up a fraction of Xn + (Xa−ln) / lm, and the empty dimension ln + 1 is lm (Xn
+ 1−Xn) −Xa + ln.

By doing so, the remaining space can be expanded in the horizontal direction by ln, as compared with the case where the space is calculated in mesh units.

The new free dimension ln + 1 is stored and used for the next X coordinate calculation.

In step 205, it is checked whether the position of the right end of the article calculated in this way exceeds the right end of the loading space,
If so, leave this item and go to step 211 to select the next item.

In step 211, it is checked whether it is the last article, and if it is not the last article, go to step 201,
Choose the next item.

If it does not exceed the right end in step 205, the stowage is possible. In step 206, the mesh of the newly occupied space of the mesh table Tl is changed from 0 to 1, and all the articles stowed this time are stored in the unfolded article table Ta. Then, enter the container code and the stacking order, and go to step 300.

If it is found in step 211 that there is no article to be loaded in the space under consideration, which is the last article, in step 212,
The space is prohibited.

Further, in step 213, it is checked whether or not a space remains, and if there is, the space is obtained and the process goes to step 300. If not, it is determined that there is no article to be loaded and that the loading efficiency is not satisfied in step 107. Therefore, it is determined that the loading efficiency is unsatisfactory, and the fact is displayed on the CRT 75, and the determination by the operator is awaited.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, when a stowage plan of an odd-shaped article is performed by a computer, and a stowage position of the article is determined in a horizontal direction and a vertical direction, a rough mesh is created and a scan time for obtaining a stowage space is determined. By reducing data and memory capacity and having data of actual dimensions in the X-axis direction, a decrease in the loading efficiency in that case can be suppressed, so that the overall loading efficiency can be increased.

Further, since the width of the unstackable portion is smaller than the width of any of the candidate articles to be stowed, the collapse of the load does not occur.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view showing a situation in which space is saved when loading articles in the present invention, FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of the appearance of a container and an article to which the present invention is applied, and FIG. 3 is a loading position. A diagram showing a method of creating a mesh according to the present invention for displaying
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of hardware used to execute the method of the present invention, and FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8
FIG. 9 shows an example of a table used in the present invention, FIG. 9 shows an example of a mesh created in the present invention, FIG. 10 shows an example of a stowage procedure of the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing details of a procedure for loading one article in the procedure of FIG.
FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a method of calculating the dimension in the X-axis direction. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Container, 2, 21, 22 ... Article, 3 ... Mesh, 4 ... Article 21
Dimensions, 5: Mesh space, 6: Computer, 61: CP
U, 62: Main memory, 63: Input / output circuit, 64: Bus, 71: Keyboard, 72: Floppy disk driver, 73: Auxiliary memory, 74: Printer, 75: CRT, Tm: Article master table, Tp: Container master Table, Tt… Article table, Ta…
Product deployment table, Tl ... mesh table.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Yukio Hikuma 3-2-1 Samachi, Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture Within Hitachi Engineering Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Tatsuo Yoshioka 4-6, Kanda Surugadai, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Stock (72) Inventor Hiroyuki Sugihara 3-17-12 Sakae, Naka-ku, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture Inside the Hitachi, Ltd.Chubu Branch (72) Inventor Yoichi Kawase 1 Toyota Town, Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture Toyota Motor Vehicle Stock In-company (56) References JP-A-60-101607 (JP, A) JP-A-60-167804 (JP, A) JP-A-62-21603 (JP, A)

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] An article for obtaining, by an electronic computer, an arrangement of articles in which free-form articles are stacked in a row in the depth direction of the container, based on at least information on the dimensions and the order of the articles to be stacked and the containers. In the stowage planning method, an article master table that stores data required for stowage, a container master table that stores container specifications, an article table that specifies the articles to be stowed, and a cross section orthogonal to the depth direction of the container are meshed. In the memory of the computer, a mesh table and an article deployment table that stores the results of stowage calculation are constructed in the memory of the computer, and the article master table, the container master table, and the article table are used. Determine the specifications and mesh specifications and combine them according to the number of articles to be loaded from the article master table. The size of the rectangular mesh circumscribing the article is determined by examining the increase in the empty dimension at the time and determining whether or not to combine the article, and determining the size of the actual article in the horizontal direction and the size of the arranged article. The actual size position of the tip is also determined, and whether the other end of the arranged article is placed from one of the left and right ends of the cross section and the other end of the arranged article exceeds the other end of the storage space is checked by the actual size position of the tip of the article. If it does not exceed the other end, place it on the mesh table and enter the container code and stacking order of the goods loaded this time into the article deployment table.If it exceeds the other end, return to the top of the one end and stack An article stowage planning method, comprising: arranging the articles until there are no articles to be attached or the mesh is full. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein a vacant portion on the other end when returning from the other end to above the one end is designated as an unstackable portion. Characteristic goods loading planning method. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the dimension of the article is represented by the size of a rectangular mesh circumscribing the article. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein when a difference between mesh heights at upper ends of the plurality of arranged articles is equal to or less than a predetermined value, the plurality of articles are arranged. A method of planning the stowage of articles, characterized in that the height of the upper end of the article is represented by the height of the highest mesh and the arrangement of the next article is determined.