JPH05170313A - Carrying out controller of automated warehouse - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make a plurality of stacker cranes effectively carry out articles from a warehouse by determining a stacker crane which is not being operated, referring whether or not there are stock articles which are not yet treated in the shelf managed by the stacker crane, determining the number of the shelf from which the articles are carried out and outputting carrying out command. CONSTITUTION:A crane operation determining section 1 is provided to determine which stacker crane is moving when a plurality of carrying out requests are made or a work completion signal is input from an automated warehouse, and an untreated request determining section 2 is provided to determine whether or not the stacker crane, which is determined no to be operating by the crane operation determining section 1, can take out the articles requested to carry out from the shelf in its charge. When an affirming signal is output by the untreated request determining section 2, a command to take out the article is given to the stacker crane by a command outputting section 3. Receiving the command from the command outputting section 3, a crane operation controlling section 4 makes the stacker crane operate.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a shipping control device for an automatic warehouse.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a shipping control device for an automated warehouse, which controls the shipping of inventory items in an automated warehouse having an automatic loading / unloading function, searches inventory information for inventory items for which a shipping request has been issued according to a storage bin and first It was a method of outputting a shipping instruction to the stacker crane corresponding to the stock number of the stock item found.

[0003]

However, such a conventional shipping control device for an automatic warehouse has the following problems. That is, if multiple outgoing requests are issued,
The inventory information was searched for in the order in which the shipping requests were received, and the first stock item found was assigned to output the shipping instruction. In that case, there was a problem that shipping instructions were concentrated on the first stacker crane.

Therefore, in order to prevent this, the bin number for starting the search is changed to the first stacker crane, the second stacker crane, the third stacker crane, or the stacker crane that finally found the stock item. There has also been proposed a shipping control device in which the stacker crane is started from the next time so that the load is leveled and all stocked products that have been requested to be shipped are shipped as soon as possible.

However, even with the shipping control device for an automatic warehouse that has been devised in this way, the stock allocation is performed and the shipping command is issued regardless of whether the shipping operation for one shipping command is completed. Since the stacker crane to be output is determined, the output of stock items far from the output port may be assigned to the same stacker crane, and output instructions that take time to output may overlap.In such a case, There has been a problem that it takes a long time for the goods to be delivered from the warehouse for all the goods requested to be delivered.

Further, there is a case where an abnormality detection function such as a package shape detection of an automatic warehouse is activated during the warehousing work, and the warehousing work is temporarily stopped. In such a case, the restoration work by the human system is completed, The next shipping operation cannot be started until the abnormality is reset, and even if it is the best when allocating inventory and determining the stacker crane, all the shipping operations are completed due to an unexpected situation. There was also a problem that the time until was longer than expected.

In such a case, when all the goods to be delivered are loaded on the truck, the waiting time of the truck driver is lengthened, and the work of unloading from the warehouse is delayed. was there.

The problems of this conventional example will be further described. First, as shown in FIG.
There are three units, 1 to CR3, and A as a stock item A on each of the shelves L11 to L32 managed by each stacker crane.
1 to A7, B1 to B4 as B, and C1 to C as C
It is assumed that the three types of No. 3 are scattered at random, and the delivery request is made in the order of inventory items A, B, C, A, B, A, B, A.

In such a case, in the conventional case, the inventory item A having the order 1 is instantly A1 of the stacker crane CR1 and the inventory item B having the order 2 in order to be processed by the computer.
Is B2 of stacker crane CR2, and so on.
As a result, allocation is performed as shown in FIG.

Therefore, when the shipping operation is carried out in accordance with this, as shown in the earth whirlpool time chart, in some cases, the stacker crane CR1 is assigned only the stocked goods in the place far from the shipping port, and the other stacker crane CR2. , CR3 has finished the work, only the stacker crane CR1 has to take a long time to carry out the work, and the stacker crane CR1 is under a heavy load, and the other stacker cranes CR2, CR2.
The load of CR3 is about half that of the stacker crane CR1, and the load is unevenly distributed by the stacker crane, and there is a problem that the time required for the entire shipping operation becomes long.

Further, since the stacker crane to be delivered at the time when the delivery request is issued is decided, if the stock A
In the case where a packaging abnormality or the like occurs during the unloading work of No. 2, the unloading work of the next inventory A3 cannot be started unless a person recovers the unloading work of this inventory A2, which leads to an increase in efficiency. There was a problem that good shipping work could not be done.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and provides a delivery control apparatus for an automatic warehouse which does not increase the delivery time of a specific stacker crane and is not affected by the occurrence of an unexpected situation. The purpose is to provide.

[0013]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is directed to a shipping control device for an automatic warehouse in which a plurality of stacker cranes are in service, when a plurality of shipping requests are issued or a work completion signal is input from the automatic warehouse. The crane operation determination unit that determines which stacker crane is in operation, and the stacker crane that determines the stacker crane that is not in operation by the crane operation determination unit is the shelf that is in charge of the inventory item that corresponds to the delivery request. An unprocessed request determination unit that determines whether or not the product can be taken out from the stack, an instruction output unit that gives a command to the stacker crane to take out the stock item when the unprocessed request determination unit outputs an affirmative output, and the command output And a crane operation control unit that operates a corresponding stacker crane in response to a command from the unit.

[0014]

In the automatic warehouse outgoing control device of the present invention, when a plurality of outgoing requests are issued, the crane operation determination unit determines whether or not the stacker crane is operating.
The stacker crane that is not in operation is sought, and the unprocessed request determination unit determines whether or not there is an unprocessed shipping request among the shipping requests, and the stacker crane manages the inventory of the unprocessed shipping request. It is searched whether or not it is in the inventory information of the shelf, the command output unit determines the shelf number to be delivered, and outputs a delivery instruction to the crane operation control unit.

Similarly, when a work completion signal is input from the automated warehouse, the crane operation determination unit determines whether or not the stacker crane is in operation, determines a stacker crane that is not in operation, and determines the unprocessed request determination unit. Determines whether there is still an unprocessed shipping request in the shipping request by searching whether the stock item of the unprocessed shipping request is in the inventory information of the shelf managed by the stacker crane, The command output unit determines a shelf number to be delivered and outputs a delivery instruction to the crane operation control unit.

In this way, when articles that have been requested to be shipped are in stock on a plurality of shelves, the waste of time due to the same stacker crane continuously performing the shipping operation is eliminated, and any one of the stacker crane loads has an abnormal shape. If it happens,
The other stacker cranes can be used to carry out the remaining stocked goods to improve the efficiency of the shipping work.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In a shipping control device of an automatic warehouse in which a plurality of stacker cranes are in service, when a plurality of shipping requests are issued or the work is completed from the automatic warehouse. When a signal is input, a stacking request is issued to the crane operation determination unit 1 that determines which stacker crane is operating and the stacker crane that is determined not to operate this crane operation determination unit 1. An unprocessed request determination section 2 that determines whether the corresponding article can be taken out from the shelf, and when the unprocessed request determination section 2 gives a positive output, gives a command to the stacker crane to take out the corresponding article. Consists of a command output unit 3 and a crane operation control unit 4 that operates a stacker crane in response to a command from the command output unit 3. It has been.

Then, in the shipping control device of the automatic warehouse of this embodiment, which stacker crane is operating when a plurality of shipping requests are issued or when a work completion signal is input from the automatic warehouse. When the crane operation determination unit 1 determines whether or not the crane operation determination unit 1 outputs the determination output indicating that the crane operation determination unit 1 is not operating, the unprocessed request determination unit 2 determines that the unprocessed shipping request is out of the shipping requests. Determine if there is.

If the unprocessed request determination unit 2 outputs an affirmative output that the request is an unprocessed shipping request, the command output unit 3 has the same inventory information as the shipping request and the inventory information in the shelf. It is determined whether or not the shipping request has been processed by the positive output, and at the same time, the shipping instruction is output to the stacker crane.

The crane operation control unit 4 uses the command output unit 3
In response to the command output of, the stacker crane is operated and the stocked product is taken out of the designated shelf and taken out.

Further, in the shipping control device for the automatic warehouse, how the shipping control is performed when a shipping request is issued or when a work completion signal is input from the automatic warehouse, the flowchart shown in FIG. The detailed description will be given with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

First, the number of stacker cranes is taken out (step S1). In the case shown in FIG. 3, this is 3
It becomes a stand.

Next, the crane operation determination unit 1 checks whether or not the first stacker crane, for example, CR1 is in operation (step S2).

If it is determined in step S2 that the operation is in progress, the process returns to step S1 and the same determination is made for the next stacker crane. However, if it is not in operation, the process proceeds to the next step S3, and the number of delivery requests is taken out.

Subsequently, the unprocessed request determination unit 2 checks whether or not the shipping request is unprocessed. If processed, the process jumps to step S8, and if unprocessed, the next step S5.
Move on to.

In step S5, the stacker crane found in step S2, the shelf numbers L11 and L12 managed by CR1 in this case, is taken out, and the stock product requested to be delivered by the command output unit 3 and the stock product in the shelf. Are checked to see if they are the same (step S6). If they are not the same, the process jumps to step S8, and if they are the same, the process moves to the next step S7.

Then, in step S7, a command is issued to the crane operation control section 4 that the delivery request has been made and that the same inventory item as the inventory request is taken out from the corresponding shelf. That is, in the case of this embodiment, first, the stock item A1
Will be unloaded by the stacker crane CR1.

The search for whether there is an inventory item corresponding to this delivery command is repeated for the number of shelving units in charge (steps S8 and S5), and an inventory item corresponding to the shelving units of the stacker crane is found. If not, the processes of steps S4 to S7 are repeated for the number of delivery requests (steps S9 and S3).

When it is determined in step S2 that the CR1 is operating as the stacker crane for the stock item A1 of the order 1, the stacking crane is repeated until a stacker crane that is not operating is found (step S).
2, S10, S1).

In the same manner, the processing is repeated for the stocked products in the order 2 and thereafter, and as the stocked product B in the order 2, the stacker crane CR2 selects the stocked B2 on the shelf which it is in charge, and the order 3 The stock C of the stock C is the stock C on the shelf under the control of the stacker crane CR3.
2 is selected.

Then, with respect to the delivery request for the order 4 and thereafter, since all the stacker cranes are in operation,
Unprocessed

When a signal indicating that the work of the stacker crane CR2 is completed is input, the inventory item A of order 4 becomes A4 of the stacker crane CR2.

In this way, the timing chart of FIG. 4 is obtained by sequentially waiting for the input of the work completion signal of each stacker crane and determining the stacker crane that is in charge of the delivery of the unprocessed stock product. The allocation is performed as shown in.

When the stacker crane CR3 is unloaded from B4 during the unloading work, the work cannot be completed within the scheduled time due to an abnormality in the packing style, and the stacker crane CR2 completes the work first, the order 7 The stocked product A is instructed to be delivered to the stocked product A5 of the stacker crane CR2 that has completed the work, and the shipping work of the order 7 is not waited until the work of the stacker crane CR3 is restored.

In this way, in the shipping control device for the automatic warehouse of this embodiment, when a plurality of shipping requests are issued,
Alternatively, when a work completion signal is input from the automated warehouse, it is determined whether the stacker crane is operating,
The stacker crane that is not in operation is sought, and it is determined whether or not there is an unprocessed shipping request in the shipping request, and the stock item of the unprocessed shipping request is in the inventory information of the shelf managed by the stacker crane. It is possible to perform load leveling for multiple stacker cranes by making it possible to reduce the impact of unforeseen circumstances by searching for whether there is a storage bin, determining the storage bin to be delivered, and outputting a delivery instruction. You can do it.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to determine whether the stacker crane is operating when a plurality of delivery requests are issued or when a work completion signal is input from the automatic warehouse. The stacker crane that is not in operation is determined, it is determined whether there is an unprocessed shipping request in the shipping request, and the inventory of the unprocessed shipping request is the inventory of the shelf managed by the stacker crane. Since it is configured to search for whether or not the information is in the information, determine the shelf number to be delivered and output the delivery instruction, compared to the case where the allocation is previously determined for all inventories as in the conventional case, 1 Two stacker cranes will not be given a command to issue inventory items far from the issue port, and the operating load will not be biased.
In addition, if there is a problem with the packing appearance when carrying out an inventory item that has been assigned in advance, there is no problem that the inventory item that is assigned next will not be able to be delivered. The load can be leveled, the warehousing work can be efficiently performed, and the warehousing work can be performed without being affected by the occurrence of an unexpected situation.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the above embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a layout of the automated warehouse of the above embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing the operation of the above embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a timing chart showing the operation of a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Crane operation determination unit 2 Unprocessed request determination unit 3 Command output unit 4 Crane operation control unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A stacking control device for an automated warehouse in which a plurality of stacker cranes are in service, which stacker crane operates when a plurality of shipping requests are issued or when a work completion signal is input from the automated warehouse. For the crane operation determination unit that determines whether the crane operation is in progress, and for the stacker crane that the crane operation determination unit determines that the operation is not in operation, it is determined whether or not the stock item corresponding to the delivery request can be taken out from the shelf in charge. A request determination unit, a command output unit that gives a command to the stacker crane to retrieve the corresponding stock item when a positive output is given by the unprocessed request determination unit, and a command output unit that receives the command from the command output unit A shipping control device for an automatic warehouse, comprising a crane operation control unit for operating a stacker crane.