JPH03166103A - Automated warehouse - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the efficiency in stock management and the delivery works by changing over the operation from the delivery capacity priority mode to the accommodation efficiency priority mode or vice versa according to whether the number of loadings is over or under the number of deliveries. CONSTITUTION:A delivery command actuates a search of an outgoing object stocking rack and sorting is made in the sequence from lesser number of loadings of the outgoing objects. Examination shall be done to know if the number of loadings on the rack concerned is over or below the number of deliveries. When the number of loadings is greater, setting is made into the delivery capacity priority mode 1, which generates operation is which the delivery is completed with a lesser number of delivery motions. When the number of loadings is smaller, on the other hand, setting is made into the accommodation efficiency priority mode 2, in which delivery is made in the sequence from a non-specified number rack so as to increase empty racks, which should increase racks admissible for new accommodation.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application This invention relates to an automated warehouse, and more particularly to an automated warehouse that can select an operation mode depending on conditions such as how crowded the warehouse is, how urgent the warehouse is, etc. It is something.

Conventional technology In an automated warehouse equipped with racks for storing pallets and stacker cranes for loading and unloading pallets into and out of the racks, for example, when the number of products to be delivered is fixed, racks containing more products than the number of products to be delivered are If there is a stacker crane, the pallet loaded with products is taken out from the rack by a stacker crane, and the entire number of items to be shipped is taken out in one unloading operation. In this case, a pallet loaded with an odd number of products is created as leftover products, and this pallet is re-entered into the original rack as it is.

There are also cases where a delivery plan is made and the delivery is carried out.

This determines how the products stored in the racks will be delivered based on the delivery schedule for that day (schedules such as the type of product to be delivered, the quantity to be delivered, and the time of delivery, etc.). The system determines in advance how to combine the racks for unloading based on the number of products stored in the warehouse, and makes a retrieval plan.

Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-315405 discloses that the driving mode can be set to a mode that prioritizes unloading work, a mode that prioritizes warehousing work, etc. depending on the situation of people leaving the warehouse.
An operating method for an automated warehouse is disclosed that aims to improve the efficiency of warehousing and unloading operations and to maintain a balance between warehousing and unloading.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the case of the most common method of unloading the warehouses used in the automated warehouses described above, that is, the unloading method in which the entire number of warehouses is unloaded with a small number of unloading operations, the unloading efficiency is good, but the unloading efficiency is high. However, there is a problem in that a large number of racks are created that accommodate fractions of undelivered goods, and the ratio of empty racks that can be stocked does not increase in proportion to the amount of undelivered goods. Therefore, in automated warehouses that use this sort of shipping method, pallets are taken out from each rack containing the same product and collected in one place, and pallets loaded with fractional products are stacked against each other. It was necessary to consolidate the cargo into a constant number of pallets loaded with a predetermined number of products, and to perform reorganization work to minimize the number of pallets loaded with fractional products.

In addition, in the case of the above-mentioned automated warehouses, where warehouses are dispatched after making a shipping plan, it is difficult to completely understand the shipping schedule, and unplanned shipping work that requires an emergency may interrupt the shipping schedule. In many cases, it was not possible to issue the goods. Also, 1
There is also a problem in that it is difficult to make a shipping plan even when the amount of shipping varies greatly depending on the time of the day.

In addition, in the case of the above-mentioned automated warehouse where the operation mode can be set according to the warehousing and retrieval situation, for example, when the ratio of warehousing work increases, the operation mode can be set to give priority to warehousing and warehousing. However, as for the shipping method, since the shipping method is usually adopted in which shipping is done with a small number of shipping operations, it is not possible to prevent the number of pallets loaded with odd pieces from increasing, and as a result, reorganization work is required. There is a problem in that it is necessary to do it as needed, and the editing or changing work is time-consuming.

This invention was made in view of the above circumstances, and by setting an operation mode that prioritizes either the delivery capacity or the storage efficiency in accordance with the conditions such as the delivery situation or the fluctuation of the delivery amount depending on the time of day. The purpose is to provide an automated warehouse that can organize inventory and efficiently issue goods.

Means for Solving the Problems As a means for solving the problems described above, the present invention provides an automatic warehouse that is equipped with a plurality of shelves including shelves with different numbers of products loaded, and is capable of taking out any number of products. If there is a shelf whose number is greater than or equal to the required number of goods to be delivered, the system will issue the goods from this shelf.If there is a shelf whose loading capacity is less than the required number of goods to be delivered, then the storage efficiency priority mode will issue the goods from this shelf. The vehicle is characterized by being equipped with an operation mode switching device that switches the operation mode between the two modes.

Operation By having the structure as described above, the automatic warehouse of the present invention can, for example, when there is a large number of unloading operations due to the congestion of warehousing and unloading operations, the operation mode switching device can set the retrieval capacity priority mode to meet the requirements. If there is a shelf loaded with more than the number of products to be shipped, the shelves will be loaded with products, and if there are no such shelves, the products will be loaded in order from the shelf with the largest number of products. Although the number of unloaded shelves increases, since the number of unloading operations is minimized, the unloading work can be completed efficiently.

In addition, when there is relatively little stocking work, if the storage efficiency priority mode is set using the transport mode switching device, if there is a shelf loaded with fewer than the required number of products to be stocked, the product will be stocked from that shelf. If there are no shelves, the shelves are shipped in order starting from the shelf with the least number of items loaded. Therefore, although the number of unloading operations increases, it is possible to prevent an increase in the number of shelves loaded with a fraction of products as unloaded products, and increase the number of empty shelves that can be stocked.

EXAMPLE The present invention was applied to an automated warehouse that switches operation modes depending on the time of day. An example is shown in FIGS.
This will be explained based on the diagram.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a time schedule display section 2 of a timer-type operation mode switching device 1, in which two operation modes, mode 1 and mode 2, are switched. This mode has a high delivery capacity and can efficiently complete the delivery work in a short period of time in order to complete delivery with a small number of delivery operations in the delivery capacity priority mode. Since products are delivered from a fixed shelf loaded with a large predetermined quantity of products, the number of non-constant shelves loaded with fewer products than the fixed shelf increases as a remaining stock. In addition, mode 2 is a storage efficiency priority mode, in which the number of non-constant shelves is reduced, so the number of unloading operations increases and it takes more time, but the products loaded on the non-constant shelves are dispatched first. Therefore, it is possible to increase the number of empty shelves and increase the number of shelves that can accept new stock.

In this automated warehouse, warehousing work is carried out whenever there is a request for warehousing, while warehousing work is
For example, during the day, mode 1 is operated during the time period (4 hours) from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., when there is a high concentration of unloading work, and from 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. the next day, when there is relatively less unloading work. The timer-type operation mode switching device 1 automatically switches the mode to operate in mode 2 during the time period (20 hours) up to 20:00, and the mode is automatically switched by the timer-type operation mode switching device 1. In such cases, it is possible to temporarily switch manually from the storage efficiency priority mode to the shipping capacity priority mode.

Next, the operation of this embodiment configured as described above will be explained.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the control at the time of unloading of this automated warehouse, and the unloading operation of the automatic warehouse will be explained based on this flowchart.

When a command to issue goods is received, the program starts, and in step 1, a search is made for the delivered shelves where the delivered items are stored, and in step 2, the detected delivered shelves are sorted from the one with the smallest number of loaded items. Sort in order.

Then, in step 3, the shelf with the least number of loads (i
=o), in step 4 the shelf (i
= 0) is the same as the number of items shipped. If the result is "yes", proceed to step 7 and load the corresponding shelf (
The pallets are taken out from the shelf with i = 0) and all are shipped.

In addition, if the number of items loaded on the shelf (i=0) is different from the number of items delivered in step 4, that is, if the judgment result is "no," the process proceeds to step 5 to determine whether the number of items loaded is greater than the number of items delivered. If the result is "yes", that is, if the number of items loaded is large, the process proceeds to step 6. And step 6
Check whether the operation mode is mode 1 or not.

If the time at this time is, for example, after 11:30 a.m., the operation mode of the automated warehouse is set by the timer-type operation mode switching device 1 to mode 1, which gives priority to the unloading capacity, so proceed to step 7 and load Pallets are taken out from the shelf where the number is greater than the number of deliveries (the i-th shelf) and the number of pallets is delivered as many as the number of deliveries.

Therefore, in this case, the efficiency of the unloading operation is improved because the request is satisfied with one unloading operation, but on the other hand,
The number of so-called non-constant shelves with sufficient storage capacity increases.

In addition, in step 5, if the number of items loaded is less than the number of items shipped, that is, if the judgment result is "no," the process proceeds to step 10, and the shelf targeted for the judgment has the highest number of items loaded among all the shelves. Whether there are many shelves (i = i w
ax), and if it is not the shelf with the largest number of loaded items, in step 11, the next shelf (i=i+1) with the higher ranking according to the number of loaded items is selected, and the process returns to step 4. Then, in step 4, as in the case described above, it is checked whether the loaded number of the shelves selected in Step Sop 1l is the same as the number of outgoing items, and if they are the same, go to step 7, and if not, go to step 5. Proceed to each.

On the other hand, in step U, if the shelf to be determined is the shelf with the largest number of loaded items among all the shelves (i = im), there is no longer a shelf that satisfies the number of items to be shipped. Then, the process proceeds to step 7, where the pallet is taken out from this (i=imx)th shelf and all the loaded items are delivered.

Also, in step 6, if the time at that time is, for example, 3 p.m.
If it is, the operation mode of the automatic warehouse is set to mode 2, which prioritizes storage efficiency, by the timer-type operation mode switching device 1, so the process proceeds to step 12.

In step 12, unless the target shelf is the shelf with the smallest number of loaded items among all the shelves (i=0), proceed to step 13 and move to the previous shelf in the order of the smallest number of loaded items. Select shelf (i = i-1) and step 7
The process proceeds to step 1, and the item is taken out from this i-th shelf. This (j −
The i-1)th shelf is the shelf where the number of loaded items is less than the number of items to be shipped out of all the shelves sorted in step 2, and the difference is the smallest. Therefore, although all items are shipped from this shelf, This does not mean that the requested number of goods to be issued will be met. In addition, in step 12, if the shelf to be determined is the shelf with the least number of loaded items among all the shelves (i = 0), there is room to select a shelf with a smaller number of loaded items. Since there is no pallet, the process proceeds to step 7, where the pallet is taken out from the i-th shelf and shipped.

Then, in step 7, when the unloading from the i-th shelf is completed, the process proceeds to step 8, where the l-th unloading number (the number of loaded items on the i-th shelf) is subtracted from the requested unloading number to find the unloaded number. , this number of out-of-stock items is registered as a new number of out-of-stock items, and the process proceeds to step 9.

Then, in step 9, it is checked whether the newly registered number of deliveries is greater than zero, and if it is greater than zero, the process returns to step 3 and the next dispatch is performed again. Further, if the number of items to be shipped becomes zero in step 9, it is determined that all the scheduled items have been shipped, and the shipping operation is completed.

As described above, in this embodiment, the operation mode is set to mode 1 during the time period when there is a high concentration of unloading work, and to mode 2 when the unloading work is relatively small. In this case, the unloading work is performed with priority given to the unloading capacity, and a large amount of unloading work can be processed in a short time.

In addition, during times when there are relatively few unloading operations, even if the number of unloading operations increases, the unloading will be done so that there will be empty shelves.
It is possible to change the shelves in which the remaining pallets are stored to empty shelves, and then issue the pallets so that they can handle new arrivals.

In the automated warehouse of this embodiment, the timer type operation mode switching device 1 is used to switch between Mode 1 and Mode 2 depending on the time of day, but the mode can be switched manually depending on the shipping situation. Good too.

As explained above, the automatic warehouse of the present invention has a retrieval capacity priority mode in which if there is a shelf whose loaded number is greater than or equal to the required number of outgoing items, the outgoing stock is output from this shelf, and a mode in which the outgoing capacity prioritizes the outgoing items from this shelf. If there is a shelf with less than By changing the system, it is possible to shorten the waiting time for warehousing when the warehousing work is concentrated, and also to make it possible to unload the warehouse so that empty shelves are available when the warehousing work is not concentrated, which was necessary in the case of conventional automated warehouses. This eliminates the need for reorganization work, and has the advantage that preparations for the next warehousing work can be accomplished while unloading the warehouse.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 and 2 show an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a display section of a timer-type operation mode switching device, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing control at the time of leaving the warehouse. 1... Timer type operation mode switching device, 2... Display section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In an automated warehouse that is equipped with multiple shelves, including shelves with different numbers of products loaded, and can take out any number of products, if there is a shelf whose loaded number is greater than or equal to the required number of products to be delivered, this is the ability to issue products from this shelf. It is characterized by being equipped with an operation mode switching device that switches the operation mode between a priority mode and a storage efficiency priority mode in which if there is a shelf where the number of loaded items is less than the required number of items to be delivered, the storage efficiency priority mode is to remove items from this shelf. automated warehouse.