JPH04355102A - Manufacture and control method of ceramic product - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a manufacture and control method where automation of various and small quantity production of ceramic products is possible and measures for generation of inferior products can be provided swiftly. CONSTITUTION:A pallet 1 into which a memory 5, which is capable of performing wiring-in and reading-out of information, is incorporated is prepared and in the case where a product stock S is put on the pallet 1 and the same is conveyed according to a change of a manufacturing process or the product stock S is transferred onto a separate working stand, the pallet 1 is moved by attending to this or synchronizing this, through which a corresponding relation between the product stock S and memory 5 is secured. The information is written in at a fixed position in the manufacturing process, the information is read out at need and manufacturing control is performed.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] When manufacturing ceramic products, the present invention manages manufacturing information for each product individually, so that when a defective product occurs, it is possible to promptly investigate the cause and take corrective action. In addition, when manufacturing a wide variety of products, a management method is provided that allows each product to be quickly and accurately distributed and supplied to manufacturing equipment appropriate for its type.

0002

[Prior Art and Problems to be Solved] Ceramic products, such as sanitary ware, are generally manufactured through the following steps: molding, drying, glazing, and firing.

By the way, in manufacturing ceramic products,
Conventionally, there are the following problems. (b) Since the manufacturing process in the ceramics industry involves many manual operations, defective products are likely to occur. In the event that a defective product occurs, the cause of the defect must be promptly investigated and countermeasures must be taken immediately at the location where the defect occurs. However, until now, there has been no appropriate means for individually managing information regarding manufacturing processes for each product, making it difficult to identify the cause and location of defective products. (b) In recent years, there has been a strong demand for a greater variety of products. In order to respond to the diversification of products, it is necessary to correctly distribute and supply product materials to manufacturing equipment appropriate for the product type during the manufacturing process. However, since this work is complicated, it is difficult to increase production efficiency.

0004

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, the present invention has developed a method that allows manufacturing information for each product to be managed individually from the beginning of the manufacturing process. The manufacturing control method for ceramic products according to the present invention is characterized in that a pallet incorporating a storage device capable of writing and reading information is prepared, and product blanks are placed on the pallet and transported according to the progress of the manufacturing process. Alternatively, the pallet may be moved along with or in synchronization with the product bodies being transported, and information may be written to or read from the storage device at a predetermined point in the manufacturing process.

[0005]

[Operation] The manufacturing control method according to the present invention constantly moves a pallet incorporating a storage device while writing necessary information at a predetermined location, integrally with, accompanying, or synchronizing with the transportation of product substrates. In other words, not only when the product base can be transported on the pallet, but also when the product base is transferred to a different pallet during the glazing process, the pallet with the built-in storage device is moved along with the product base, or the product Since the products are moved in synchronization so that the correspondence relationship with the base material can be known, the product base material and the pallet storage device always correspond to each other. As a result, individual information about each product, such as product number and model number, can be easily retrieved from the storage device of the pallet at any time as needed.

[0006]

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the main parts of a pallet 1 used in the manufacturing control method according to the present invention and a transfer device 10 for placing product substrates on the pallet 1 or transferring them from the pallet 1 to another location. It is.

[0007] The pallet 1 is manufactured by extrusion molding or casting molding of aluminum or the like, and has a plurality of protrusions 3 provided on the surface of a substrate 2 at appropriate intervals. A cushioning material 4 such as sponge is attached to the upper surface of each protrusion 3 in order to soften the impact when placing the product substrate. On the other hand, the transfer device 10 operates on each protrusion 3 of the pallet 1.
It has a plurality of arms 11 inserted between the arms 11, and the upper surface of each arm 11 is similarly covered with a cushioning material 1 such as a sponge.
2 is attached.

The purpose of providing the protrusions 3 on the pallet 1 is to facilitate the transfer of product substrates by inserting a fork-shaped transfer device 10 as shown in the figure between the protrusions 3 and scooping up the product substrates. This is to make it possible to do so. This makes it possible to transfer products of various shapes, thereby providing versatility of the pallet 1. Further, since air permeability is obtained between the protrusions 3, there is also an advantage that the product base can be uniformly dried in the drying process.

[0009] The pallet 1 has microwaves,
A storage device 5 is embedded in which manufacturing information can be written using electromagnetic waves such as infrared rays, and the stored information can be read out as needed. As the storage device 5, for example, a device such as a so-called ID card in which a microprocessor is incorporated in a memory IC is used.

In this embodiment, by constructing a system as shown in FIG. 2, information is transmitted remotely to and from the storage device 5. The basic configuration of this system is an antenna unit 2 that transmits and receives electromagnetic waves to and from a storage device 5.
0, a controller 21 that is connected to the antenna unit 20 and limits input and output of signals, and a CPU (central processing unit) 22 that is connected to the controller 21 and processes information. The information written to the storage device 5 is written by the CPU.
22 through the controller 21 and the antenna unit 20, and conversely read out from the storage device 5, is sent to the CPU 22 through the antenna unit 20 and the controller 21 and processed.

Next, an embodiment of the manufacturing control method using the pallet 1 and the information transmission system as described above is shown in FIG.
This will be explained using FIG.

As shown in FIG. 3, the product bodies S formed by a forming machine (not shown) are placed on pallets 1 each incorporating a storage device, and conveyor 30 determined for each forming machine. The drying process is carried out by the drying process. In this embodiment, the antenna unit 20 is provided at a position (area surrounded by a dotted line with symbol A) where the product substrate S supplied from the molding machine is transferred together with the pallet 1 to the conveyance line 40 for the next drying process. Therefore, information was communicated individually for each product. The information written to the storage device of the pallet 1 here includes the product number, the mold number, the molding date, the number of castings on the day of molding, and the cumulative number of castings (total number of times the mold is used). Further, in area A of FIG. 3 or in the glazing process described later, information regarding the usage management status such as the number of days elapsed since the manufacture of the glaze and the temperature of the glaze is also written. By writing this information, each product substrate S can be easily identified. In this way, each pallet 1 and product substrate S transferred to the transport line 40 for the drying process are fed to the dryer 41.

[0013] The product body S that has completed the drying process is then supplied to an inspection process. As shown in FIG. 4, in this inspection step, each product substrate S is transferred to another workbench 50 where inspection can be easily performed, taking into consideration work efficiency. The transfer device 10 (see FIG. 1) is used to transfer the product substrate S to the workbench 50. The empty pallet 1 is moved along with the workbench 50, and the product blanks S are set to reliably return to the original pallet 1 after the inspection is completed.

If a defective product is found during the inspection, the written information is read from the storage device of the pallet 1 on which the product blank S is placed and fed back to the molding process. Since manufacturing information such as mold numbers is recorded in the storage device, it is possible to quickly identify the cause and location of defective products and take appropriate measures based on this information. can. Note that the empty pallet 1 on which the defective products were placed is temporarily sent to the molding process.

[0015] After the inspection process is completed, the product base material S returned to the original pallet 1 is transported to the glazing process. The glazing process is performed using a plurality of glazing lines 60 simultaneously, as shown in FIG. Therefore, in this embodiment, first, the product number information written in the storage device of each pallet 1 is read, and
After comparing this with production instruction information stored in the CPU, the settings are such that each product base material S is distributed to a predetermined glazing line 60 so as to have the desired color tone.

However, if there is a glazing line 60 that does not have room to accept the product substrates S because the supply amount is too large, the corresponding product substrates S are circulated on the work conveyor 70 until there is space in this glazing line 60. let The selection between transferring the product base material S to the glazing line 60 and circulating it on the work conveyor 70 is also possible when the information in the storage device of the pallet 1 is transferred to the CPU.
This can be done automatically by processing.

In this way, according to the present invention, individual product materials S are identified by reading the individual information in the storage device, so even if many types of product materials S are mixed on the conveyance line, allocation can be made easily. It can be done reliably. In other words, since it is possible to process multiple types of product substrates simultaneously and in parallel, it is possible to easily achieve high-mix, low-volume production.

[0018] When performing the glazing work, the product base S
is transferred to a dedicated workbench 61 to prevent glaze from adhering to the pallet 1 provided with the storage device. In this case as well, the pallet 1 is moved along with or in synchronization with the product base S, and the product base S after the glazing process is set to return to the original pallet 1 again. In the glazing process, glazing line number information is additionally written into the storage device of the pallet 1.

[0019] Thereafter, a brand mark is affixed to the product base S, if desired, by a work robot, and the product body S is conveyed to the firing process. The location of the brand mark is automatically determined by the work robot based on the product number information in the storage device. When firing further, the information read from the storage device is
Verification is performed using the PU, and based on the instructions obtained as a result, each product body S is transferred to the firing trolley corresponding to the product number. The empty pallet 1 is returned to the molding process and is placed on standby for new product substrates S to be transported.

The manufacturing control method according to the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above. For example, empty pallets during the inspection process or glazing process do not necessarily need to be placed parallel to the product substrate transferred to another workbench, and if there are restrictions on equipment layout, they may be moved to another location. The pallet 1 may be placed on standby once, and the pallet 1 may be synchronized when returning the product base again. In short, it is sufficient to ensure the correspondence between the product substrate and the pallet. Furthermore, when the pallet is moved together with the product base, the pallet can be moved using the upper or lower part of the product base conveyance line. As described above, the present invention can be modified as appropriate depending on the embodiment.

[0021]

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above explanation, according to the present invention, since the correspondence between the pallet incorporating the storage device and the product base is always ensured, the information written in the storage device is By reading out the information, it becomes possible to easily obtain individual information about each product material. Therefore, when a defective product occurs, the cause and location of the defective product can be quickly identified based on the history of the product material, etc., and appropriate measures can be taken immediately.

[0022] Furthermore, even when different types of product substrates are mixed, each product substrate can be clearly identified by reading out the individual information written in the storage device, so that each product substrate can be properly identified. It is possible to automatically allocate to equipment. Therefore, it is possible to automate the simultaneous production of multiple types of products, making it easy to achieve high-mix low-volume production.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the main parts of a pallet and a transfer device used in the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example of an information transmission system used in the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the manufacturing control method according to the present invention, and is a plan view showing a location where a pallet on which product substrates are placed is transferred to a drying process.

FIG. 4 shows an embodiment of the manufacturing control method according to the present invention, and is a plan view showing an inspection process.

FIG. 5 is a plan view showing a glazing process, showing an embodiment of the manufacturing control method according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1...Palette 5...Storage device 10...Transfer device 20...Antenna unit 21...Controller 22...CPU (central processing unit) 30... Conveyor in the molding process 40...Conveyance line for drying process 50...Workbench 60...Glaze line 70...Work conveyor S...Product material

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: A pallet incorporating a storage device capable of writing and reading information is prepared, and product substrates are placed on the pallet and transported according to the progress of the manufacturing process, or are carried along with or in synchronization with the product substrates being transported. A manufacturing control method for ceramic products, characterized in that the pallet is moved and information is written to or read from the storage device at a predetermined point in the manufacturing process.