JPH0478522B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to article sorting equipment used to sort multiple types of articles according to shipping destinations.
Specifically, a shelf is provided for storing a plurality of types of articles, and an instruction means is provided for instructing information for taking out articles from the shelf, and is operated by a worker when there is a shortage of articles stored in the shelf. The present invention relates to article sorting equipment that is provided with a command switch that issues an article shortage command, and is provided with article shortage post-processing means that performs post-processing for article shortages based on article shortage command information from the command switch.

[Prior Art] Such article sorting equipment stores articles taken out by a worker based on an article removal instruction into a container conveyed along a container conveyance line, for example, so that the articles are sorted into containers destined for the same shipping destination. In addition, by providing a post-processing means that operates based on the article shortage command information from the command switch that commands the shortage of articles, it is possible to store multiple types of articles in the shelves. This allows for appropriate post-processing in the event that there is a shortage of purchased items.

In addition, the post-processing means includes a branch conveying means for separating a container in which an article is insufficient among the containers in which the article storage work has been completed from other containers and conveying it to an article replenishment point, and There are various means such as a notification means for notifying a replenishment worker that an item is available. The command switch may be provided one at a time for each of the above-mentioned shelf portions, or one command switch may be provided for each of the plurality of articles stored on the shelf, and, As a command switch,
Generally, a push button type switch is used.

By the way, conventionally, the post-processing means has been configured to start processing immediately when the command switch outputs the article shortage command information. In other words, in the case of the above-mentioned branch conveyance means, the process of checking which containers are lacking in goods among the containers in which the work of storing goods has been completed is immediately started, and also in the case of the above-mentioned notification means. In this case, notification processing such as lighting of a lamp is immediately started.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, according to the above-mentioned conventional configuration, even if an operator makes an erroneous operation of the command switch, such as by accidentally touching the command switch while taking out an article, the processing of the post-processing means is immediately started. As a result, there is a risk that necessary items may be refilled, such as replenishing containers that have been diverted even though there are no shortages of items, or replenishing shelves with items that are not in short supply. This had the disadvantage of causing problems such as unnecessary work being done in vain.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and its purpose is to ensure that the processing of the post-processing means is accurately started only when necessary.

[Means for solving problems]

The characteristic configuration of the article sorting equipment according to the present invention is that the article shortage post-processing means that performs post-processing for article shortages continuously receives article shortage command information for a set time from a command switch that instructs shortage of articles stored on a shelf. It is configured to start processing when it is output, and its functions and effects are as follows.

[Effect]

That is, when the command switch continues to be operated for a set time or more and article command information is continuously outputted from the command switch for the set time, the processing of the post-processing means is started. In other words, even if the command switch is operated only momentarily, the post-processing means will not start processing.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Therefore, even if a worker makes an erroneous operation such as accidentally touching a command switch while taking out an article, the post-processing means will not start processing. avoid troubles caused by unnecessary processing,
Now I can use it even better.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a sorting facility for articles for freezing and refrigerating.This facility is provided with an article storage room A for freezing and refrigerating, and an article sorting work room B on both sides of a partition wall 1. A pair of replenishment conveyors 2 for transporting articles from storage room A to article sorting work room B are arranged between both rooms A and B.

In the article storage room A, as shown in FIG. 2, there is a transport vehicle 3 in which a plurality of types of articles X packed in boxes are placed and separated by type, and a transport vehicle 3 in which unsealed articles Xa are separated by type. A storage stand 4 is provided for storing the items in a stacked state and in a stacked state.

Therefore, the article replenishment worker located in the article storage room A unpacks the article X on the transport vehicle 3 and supplies it to the storage table 4, and stores the article on the storage table 4 based on a replenishment command to be described later. This involves the work of supplying the loaded articles Xa to the replenishment conveyor 2, and the work of replacing the transport vehicle 3 with a new transport vehicle 3 when the transport vehicle 3 becomes empty.

In the article sorting work room B, there are multiple types of articles.
A pair of shelves 5 for storing Xa and a pair of container transport conveyors 6 as transport lines for transporting article storage containers Z are provided, and each of the pair of shelves 5 has its back side connected to a replenishment conveyor 2. It is disposed beside both conveyors 2 and 6 with its front side facing toward the container transport conveyor 6.

The shelf 5 is formed in a so-called gravity rack type in which the loading surface is inclined so that it becomes lower toward the front side, and goods supplied to the rear side are moved to the front side by their own weight. It is now possible to do so.

Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the shelf 5 is divided into a plurality of sections along the conveyance direction of the container conveyor 6, and each of the divided shelf portions 5A has two upper and lower sections.
Tiered loading sections 5a are provided, and two types of articles Xa are stored in each loading section 5a in the lateral direction.

Therefore, a plurality of article retrieval workers are arranged on the front side of the shelf 5, with one worker assigned to each shelf section 5A, and one or more workers are assigned on the back side of the shelf 5. A human article replenishment worker is deployed, and the article retrieval worker is responsible for storing the retrieved articles in the container Z based on instructions from the article retrieval information described below. , the work of replenishing the shelves 5 with the articles Xa conveyed by the replenishment conveyor 2 is performed.

In addition, when the goods are conveyed by the replenishment conveyor 2, the goods replenishment worker will
Recognizing that it is necessary to supply supplies to
It is necessary to find a place where the amount of goods is low and replenish the goods there.

Next, an instruction means D for instructing information on taking out articles from the shelf 5, a remaining article management means E for managing the amount of articles remaining on the shelf 5 in accordance with the type of article, and information on the remaining article managing means E. On the basis of the,
Notification means F for an article replenishment command to instruct the replenishment of articles whose remaining amount is low, articles stored in the shelf 5
Article shortage processing means K when Xa is insufficient, and
Each of the container transport means G that drives the container transport conveyor 6 to transport the container Z will be explained.

First, to explain briefly based on FIGS. 4 and 7, when the contents of the order form 7 issued by a customer etc. are input to the host controller 8, the host controller 8 An order form 9 is created according to the contents, and goods are purchased according to the contents of the order form 9. In addition, the host controller 8 creates work data based on the contents of the order form 7 input in advance, and uses the work data as
The work data is output to the work data storage means 10 to be stored in a storage medium such as a floppy disk.

A work controller 11 including a work data reading means 11A and an arithmetic processing unit 11B is provided corresponding to each of the shelves 5, and work data is input to this work controller 11 using the storage medium. . However, a management worker who manages the work controller 11 is provided, and this management worker inputs work data into the work controller 11 and supplies empty containers Z to the container transport conveyor 6. Work will be done.

When work data is input to the work controller 11 and work preparation is completed, the starting light 12
(see Figure 1) is lit, and based on this lighting,
As the management worker supplies empty containers Z to the container transport conveyor 6 as described above, the work controller 11 controls each of the means D, E, F, G, K.
The corresponding process will be executed.

The container conveying means G, as shown in FIG.
An electromagnetically operated egress/egress stopper 1 that receives a container Z at a position facing the front of each of the shelf portions 5A.
3 to control container transportation,
Based on information from a photo-interrupter-type container detection sensor S located at a location on the downstream side of the conveyance of each stopper 13 to detect the passage of the container Z, and a reset switch 14 provided in a display H to be described later, the work controller 11 is adapted to operate the stopper 13 to move in and out.

In other words, when the container Z is received by the stopper 13, an article retrieval worker stores the article in the container Z, and when the reset switch 14 is operated upon completion of the article storage operation, the stopper 13 is retired and sends the container Z to the downstream side of the conveyance, and as the container detection sensor S detects the presence of a container once and then detects the absence of a container again, the stopper 13 is protruded and transports the following container Z. I will accept it.

Note that the container conveyor 6 is constructed using a roller conveyor that is constantly driven.
The stopper 13 is moved in and out between adjacent rollers. In addition, 13a in the figure is
It is an electromagnetically operated entry/exit stopper that controls the conveyance of containers Z to the shelf side, that is, the work zone side, and it displays container presence/absence information on the shelf portion 5A on the uppermost side of conveyance, and on the lower side of conveyance. The work controller 11 performs entry/exit operations based on information from the photo-interrupter type container detection sensor Sa located at the location.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 5, the indicating means D includes a main indicator light 15 arranged at the top of each shelf section 5A, and a main indicator light 15 arranged at the top and bottom of each shelf section 5A. A pair of upper and lower auxiliary indicator lights 16 are provided in correspondence with each other, and an indicator H is provided in correspondence with each different type of article stored in each shelf section 5A. It is indicated that there is an article to be taken out in the section 5A, and the auxiliary indicator light 16 is turned on, so that the upper and lower loading sections 5
It is indicated that there is an article to be taken out on either side of the loading section 5a, and furthermore, the display section H indicates the article to be taken out and the amount to be taken out.

That is, the display H includes a lamp 17 indicating the article to be taken out, and a numerical display section 1 indicating the amount of the article to be taken out.
8, and the aforementioned reset switch 14. However, this display H is also provided with a command switch 20 and a confirmation lamp 21 for instructing a shortage of articles Xa stored in the shelf 5, as will be described in detail later.

Further, the main and auxiliary indicator lights 15, 16 and the indicator H are connected to the work controller 1.
1. In other words, the work controller 11 manages the positions of the containers Z that are sequentially transported, and controls the shelf portion 5A where each container Z is located.
The main and auxiliary indicator lights 15, 16 and the display H provided in the main and auxiliary indicators are operated based on the work data.

Note that the lamp 17 provided in each display H will be turned off when the reset switch 14 provided in that display H is operated, and the auxiliary indicator light 16 will be turned off.
The main indicator light 15 will be turned off when all the articles have been taken out from the corresponding loading section 5a, and the main indicator light 15 will be turned off when all the articles have been taken out from the corresponding shelf section 5A. become.

The remaining article management means E performs management by calculating the difference between the amount of each article stored in the shelf 5 in advance and the amount of each article taken out from the shelf 5 by calculating the difference for each article. It is. In other words,
The amount of articles to be stored on the shelf 5 is input in advance to the work controller 11 for each article, and the work controller 11 calculates the difference between the pre-input storage amount and the amount taken out consumed during the work for each article. It will be calculated as follows.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the notification means F includes a main indicator light 19 provided on the partition wall 1 and a display provided corresponding to each of the plurality of types of articles stored in the storage stand 4. As shown in FIG.
Similar to the display H attached to the display H, it is provided with a lamp 17 for indicating the article to be taken out, a numerical display section 18 for indicating the amount of articles to be taken out, and a reset switch 14.

Then, by lighting the main indicator light 19, it is notified that there are items to be replenished, and by the indicator Ha,
It is arranged to notify the goods to be replenished and the amount to be replenished. That is, as shown in FIG. 8, the work controller 11 determines the remaining amount of articles based on the calculation result by the remaining article management means E, and if the remaining amount of articles is small, the main indicator light 19 and the display Ha When it is determined that all replenishments have been completed based on the replenishment completion information from each indicator Ha, the main indicator light 19 is deactivated.

In addition, in order to activate the notification means F, only one container Z
The storage work for the item is treated as one order, and is performed every time a set value order, for example, 100 orders, is completed.

The article shortage processing means K will be explained below.

In addition, to briefly explain the reason why this article shortage processing means K is necessary, the above-mentioned notification means F is used to periodically replenish the shelves 5 with articles. There is a possibility that a shortage of goods may occur due to errors in the amount of goods to be replenished.
For this reason, it is necessary to standardize the process for dealing with shortages of goods.

The article shortage processing means K uses the work controller 11 to perform post-processing for article shortages based on the article shortage command information from the command switch 20, and is configured to perform post-processing for article shortages based on the article shortage command information from the command switch 20, and to perform post-processing for article shortages. The first post-processing means _M1 notifies the replenishment worker, and among the containers Z in which the article storage work has been completed, the container Z in which the article is insufficient is separated from the other containers Z, and is branched and transported to the article replenishment point. and second post-processing means _M2 .

Therefore, when the article Xa is in short supply, the article retrieval worker operates the reset switch 14 and command switch 20 of the display H for the article Xa, and by operating the reset switch 14, the article The extraction operation can be continued, and the above-mentioned post-processing can be started by operating the command switch 20.

However, both the above-mentioned post-processing means M ₁ and M ₂ are configured to start processing when the article shortage command information is continuously output from the command switch 20 for a set time (for example, 3 seconds), Moreover, the command switch 2
When the article shortage command information is continuously output from 0 for a set time, the confirmation lamp 21 described above is configured to light up only for a set time (for example, 3 seconds). Therefore, the article retrieval worker continues to operate the command switch 20 until the confirmation lamp 21 lights up.

To explain the operation of the work controller 11 in detail, first, as shown in FIG.
It is checked whether or not post-processing is in progress, and if post-processing is in progress, while checking the necessity of processing by the first post-processing means _M1 and the second post-processing means _M2 ,
If necessary, the processing of each means M ₁ and M ₂ is executed. Note that the case where the processing of each means M ₁ and M ₂ is not necessary is the case where the execution of the processing is completed.

If post-processing is not in progress, the operation state of the command switch 20 is checked, and if it is not operated, the counter N is set to zero, and if it is operated, the counter N is incremented.

As a result of repeatedly sampling the operating state of the command switch 20 at a predetermined period, if the command switch 20 continues to be operated for a set time, the counter N becomes equal to or higher than the set value α, and accordingly, the confirmation lamp 21 lights up and Post-processing begins.

As shown in FIG. 10, the first post-processing means _M1 utilizes the main indicator light 19 and the indicator Ha in the notification means F, and by lighting the main indicator light 19 and operating the indicator Ha, They will give instructions for replenishing supplies. In addition, in the case of this article replenishment, since the article Xa on the shelf 5 is empty, the maximum amount of articles that can be stored on the shelf 5 may be displayed on the display Ha.

As shown in FIG. 1, the second post-processing means _M2 supplies the container Z lacking the article Xa to the branch conveyance line 23 using the container pusher 22, and is of the photo-interrupter type. While detecting the number of containers passed by the container detection sensor 24, the container pusher 22 is operated in accordance with the arrival of the corresponding container Z. In other words, the work controller 11 manages the location of the container Z in which the item is missing depending on the branching point, and the container pusher 22 uses the information from the container detection sensor 24 to
It is set to operate.

In the above description, the processing for one command switch 20 was representatively described, but the processing for other command switches 20 is performed in the same way.

[Another example]

In the above embodiment, the case where articles are replenished from the article storage room A provided separately from the article sorting work room B is illustrated, but the storage table 4 and the transport vehicle 3 are provided on the back side of the shelf 5.
It may be implemented by deploying.

The specific structure of the instruction means D and the container conveyance means G can be changed in various ways depending on the purpose of use and the like.

The post-processing means may include an article replenishing means that fully automatically replenishes the shelves 5, or a notification means that notifies a replenishment worker that there is a shortage of articles. etc., various changes can be made.

Further, as the command switch 20, various types of switches can be used, such as a changeover type switch equipped with a knob that can be switched between two positions.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show an embodiment of the article sorting equipment according to the present invention, FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing the entire article sorting equipment, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the storage state of replenishment items, and FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the control configuration, FIGS. 5 and 6 are perspective views of the display, and FIGS. 7 to 10 are flowcharts showing control operations. 5...shelf, 20... command switch, D... instruction means, _M1 , _M2 ...post-processing means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A shelf 5 for storing a plurality of types of articles is provided, and an instruction means D is provided for instructing information to take out articles from the shelf 5, and is operated by a worker when there is a shortage of articles stored in the shelf 5. A command switch 20 for instructing a shortage of goods is provided, and post-processing means M ₁ , M ₂ for post-processing for goods shortage are provided for performing post-processing for the goods shortage based on the goods shortage command information from the command switch 20. The article sorting equipment is configured such that the post-processing means M ₁ and M ₂ start processing when article shortage command information is continuously output from the command switch 20 for a set time. Sorting equipment.