JPH10194404A - Automatic stock room - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To evacuate an article of a necessary position at the maintenance, and to make the maintenance easy, by constituting so as to be able to set for performing the maintenance of a crane at a control terminal, and so as to evacuate the article of a specific position of a shelf at the maintenance of the crame. SOLUTION: A maintenance mode is started by a terminal 12, when the maintenance becomes necessary. The execution of the maintenance is set (image plane 51), and whether or not the articles are partially moved at an edge part of the shelf, or whether or not the articles of two-throw of the shelf are fully moved, is selected corresponding to the scale of the maintenance or the like (image plane 52). Whether the maintenance execution position is at an origin side, an antiorigin side, or both of them, is designated (image plane 53). When the execution position is designated, the addresses of the number same as that of the articles to be moved, are retrieved in the shelf, and the crane is moved to the maintenance position designated on the image plane 53, after the articles are evacuated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to the maintenance of cranes in automatic warehouses.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An automatic warehouse is provided with a crane such as a stacker crane, a shelf for receiving and storing articles from the crane, and a loading / unloading station for exchanging articles with the crane. The crane in the automatic warehouse is given a work instruction by a setting terminal or the like provided near the loading / unloading station.

[0003] By the way, during the maintenance work of the crane, the stored articles become an obstacle. First, if there is an article near the place where maintenance is performed, a work space cannot be secured. There is almost no gap between the crane and the shelf,
If there is an article, maintenance such as repair and inspection cannot be performed.
Further, when performing repairs, mud, dirt, tools, and the like may fall on the article, or may stain the article by welding sparks or the like. Maintenance is particularly necessary around the lower frame and the upper frame of the crane, and around the elevator. In contrast, the crane mast has a simple mechanism and does not require much maintenance.

In a conventional automatic warehouse, there is no control mode corresponding to maintenance. For this reason, select the goods issue mode,
It is necessary to take out the articles at the location used for maintenance to the entry / exit station or to select the inter-shelf movement mode and move the articles to be evacuated to empty shelves. At the loading / unloading station, the storage capacity of the articles is small, and it is difficult to evacuate the articles required for maintenance. Therefore, in general, articles are evacuated to empty shelves, an empty space is searched to determine an evacuation destination, and returned after maintenance is completed. Searching for an empty space and setting for return after maintenance are complicated and time-consuming.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to automatically retreat necessary articles at the time of maintenance to facilitate maintenance. An additional object of the present invention is to provide an empty space at a location where maintenance is particularly easy, thereby simplifying maintenance work.
An additional object of the third aspect of the present invention is to return the evacuated article to its original position after the maintenance operation is completed, so that the subsequent entry / exit operation can be performed efficiently.

[0006]

The present invention relates to an automatic warehouse having a shelf for storing articles, a loading / unloading station, a crane for moving the articles, and a control terminal for designating the operation of the crane. It is characterized in that the terminal can be set to perform crane maintenance, and that the article at a predetermined position on the shelf is retracted during crane maintenance (claim 1).

Preferably, at the time of maintenance of the crane, articles at least at upper and lower positions of the shelf end are retracted (claim 2). Preferably, the control terminal is provided with a mode for returning the evacuated article to the original position on the shelf after the maintenance is completed (claim 3).

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a maintenance setting mode is provided in the control terminal, and when this mode is activated, articles at predetermined locations are automatically evacuated to facilitate maintenance. Therefore, an empty space for the maintenance work is automatically secured, and the maintenance work is simplified. Maintenance settings may be made at a location other than the control terminal, for example, a warehouse computer that manages a large number of automatic warehouses, a crane terminal of each crane, or the like, but at least a control terminal for each automatic warehouse can be set. To

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the articles at least at the upper and lower positions of the edge of the shelf are automatically retracted. The shelf ends may be both ends on the origin side and the opposite origin side, or may be only one end. The shelf edge is the position where maintenance work is easiest, and this is the standard maintenance location. The end of the shelf is generally close to the loading / unloading station, and is a place where the filling rate of the shelf is high because the time required for taking in and out of articles is short. Therefore, the article is evacuated in advance only at the time of maintenance. The range of the space to be retracted at the end of the shelf may be the entire upper and lower rows, but particularly necessary are the upper position of the shelf for maintenance around the upper frame and the lower position of the shelf for maintenance around the lower frame. Since the elevating platform can be moved up and down, maintenance may be performed at the lower part of the shelf or at the upper part. For these reasons, maintenance can be performed at the shelf end where maintenance work is easy. In addition, in case of sparks or the like, it is preferable to place the articles not only at the upper and lower portions of the shelf end but also in the entire upper and lower rows of the shelf end so as to be able to retreat.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, a mode is provided in the control terminal for returning the retracted articles to their original positions after the maintenance work is completed. For this reason, when the maintenance is completed, the state of the shelf returns to the original state, and subsequent entry / exit work is simplified even if the automatic warehouse manager and the maintenance worker are separate. It is not always necessary to return the evacuated article to its original position. For example, the article may be moved to another position by using evacuation of the article during maintenance. That is, it is sufficient if there is a mode for returning the retracted article to the original position.

[0011]

1 to 5 show an embodiment. FIGS. 1 and 2 show the structure of the automatic warehouse 2 according to the embodiment. Reference numerals 4 and 6 denote shelves for storing articles 8 in a plurality of storage spaces 7, which are arranged on one side or both sides of a crane 10 such as a stacker crane. I have. Reference numeral 12 denotes a setting terminal at the site, which is connected to a control computer of an automatic warehouse (not shown). In addition, the automatic warehouse 2 operates according to instructions from a warehouse computer that controls the plurality of automatic warehouses 2 and instructions from a crane terminal provided on the crane 10. Reference numerals 14 and 16 denote entry and exit stations, and a control terminal 12 is located in the vicinity thereof.
The end of the shelves 4 and 6 is defined as the origin and the opposite end is defined as the anti-origin. The end is the origin and the opposite side is the anti-origin. The control terminal 12 is provided as a set with the loading / unloading stations 14 and 16 and may be additionally provided at a central portion other than both ends of the shelves 4 and 6.

As shown in FIG. 2, a lower frame 18 is provided below the crane 10, and a reference numeral 19 denotes a traveling passage provided between the shelves 4 and 6, and the crane 10 moves on a rail 20 provided in the traveling passage 19. Moving. 22 is a ceiling guide rail 22
Then, the crane 10 is positioned while supporting the upper frame 24 of the crane 10. Reference numerals 26 and 26 denote, for example, two masts, and 28 denotes a ladder provided on one of the masts, which is used for maintenance work or the like. Reference numeral 30 denotes a traveling mechanism of the crane 10, and reference numeral 34 denotes an elevating mechanism of the elevator 32. In addition, the crane 10 is provided with a crane control terminal (not shown), so that the crane 10 can be controlled on the crane 10 at the time of maintenance or the like.

As shown in FIG. 1, shelves 4 and 6 are erected on both sides of a traveling passage 19, and the crane 10 travels, a lift 32 moves up and down, and a lift An unillustrated running fork, drawer or the like provided at 32 is controlled to move the articles in and out of the storage spaces 7 of the shelves 4 and 6 and the entry / exit stations 14 and 16. Crane 1
The parts required for the maintenance of the main
0, a lower frame 18 provided with a lifting mechanism 34, an upper frame 24 provided with pulleys, guide rollers, and the like, and a lifting table 32.

The oblique lines in FIG. 3 indicate locations where the articles are evacuated during maintenance to form empty spaces 40. The location where the empty space 40 is provided is, for example, a total of 4 points × 2 (both of the shelves 4 and 6) on each of the origin and the non-origin side of the shelves 4 and 6 in total of 8
Location. In each of the upper and lower corners, an empty space 40 of 2 × 2 is provided, and an empty space of 32 pallets of 8 × 4 is provided. Here, the row indicates the upper and lower rows of the storage space 7, and the row indicates the horizontal row of the storage space 7.
Here, the empty space 40 is provided on both of the shelves 4 and 6, but may be provided on only one of the shelves. It is preferable that the size of the empty space 40 can be set according to the size of the crane 10 or the like. In the embodiment, the empty space 40 for maintenance is provided in four places where the upper and lower sides are already completed. However, for example, only the upper and lower sides on the origin side or the upper and lower sides on the anti-origin side may be provided. An empty space 40 may be provided. In addition, in preparation for welding repair of the upper frame 24 or the like, for example, two rows of shelf ends on the origin side can be set as empty spaces.

The maintenance in the embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. The right side of FIG. 5 shows a flow of a setting screen of the terminal 12 corresponding to the control algorithm of the embodiment, and the left side shows individual processing units of a control unit (not shown) connected to the terminal 12. If maintenance is required, the terminal 1
Activate maintenance mode with 2 etc. The maintenance mode may be activated by the warehouse computer, but it is safer and more convenient to activate the maintenance mode by using the setting terminal 12 at the site. First, it is set that maintenance is to be performed on the maintenance start screen 51, and on the next screen 52, depending on the scale of maintenance or the like, the article is partially moved at the ends of the shelves 4 and 6 or not.
Whether to move all the articles on the shelves 4 and 6 is selected.

On the next screen 53, the user designates whether the maintenance work is to be performed on the origin side, the non-origin side, or both. The origin side and the non-origin side are places where the maintenance of the crane 10 is easy. If both the origin side and the non-origin side are designated, repair of each part of the crane 10 becomes easy. Although the empty space 40 is provided on both the origin side and the non-origin side in FIG. 3, the empty space 40 may be provided on one side. In this case, the empty space 40 is provided on the side set on the screen 53. When the place to perform the work is specified, the search unit 54 searches the shelves 4 and 6 for the same number of destinations as the number of articles to be moved, and the crane 10 moves to the maintenance location specified on the screen 53 after the articles are evacuated. Moving. Since the cycle time for loading and unloading articles is short on the origin side, it is not preferable to always secure a vacant space in this portion other than during maintenance.

Next, the evacuation destination of the article is displayed on the screen 55 of the terminal 12, for example.
Specify that the displayed save destination is OK. When there is an evacuation destination to be designated, or when it is desired to leave the station at stations 14 and 16, the designation is made on the screen 56. If the shelves 4 and 6 are full due to lack of empty space, the entry / exit stations 14, 16 and the shipping floor are displayed on the screen 55 as evacuation destination candidates. When the evacuation destination of the article is set, the article to be evacuated is moved to the storage space 7 of the evacuation destination by the crane 10 via the crane control unit 57.

Thus, an empty space 40 for maintenance work is secured, and the crane 10 is moved to a work place. As described above, the maintenance work of the crane 10 is preferably performed at the shelf end. In the conventional maintenance work, a person climbs the ladder 28 of the crane 10 to a relevant location and holds the ladder 28 to perform the work.
Since the work can be carried out by using the empty space 40 and putting hands or feet thereon to support the weight, it is safe. In addition, since the articles do not get in the way, a stable posture can be maintained during the work, and the work can be performed promptly without fear of damaging or soiling the articles.

When the maintenance work is completed, a screen 58 is displayed.
Set the end of work with. Next, on the screen 59, a position for returning the evacuated article is set, and the default value here is to return to the original position. To move the article to a location other than the position before maintenance or leave the article at the retracted position, select "Other" on the screen 59, and on the next screen (not shown), select "As is" (evacuate). And do not move again) or "Remove". If re-movement is selected here, the control moves to a setting screen of a destination in a normal movement between shelves.

As described above, in the embodiment, an empty space is automatically provided in the peripheral well at the maintenance point when the crane 10 is maintained. For this reason, the work becomes easier and safer, and the work is shortened because the article is automatically re-moved to the empty space after the work.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a main part of an automatic warehouse according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the crane in the automatic warehouse according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an empty space at the time of maintenance in the automatic warehouse according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a control algorithm of a maintenance mode in the automatic warehouse according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing control from a terminal when maintenance is set in the automatic warehouse according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Automatic warehouse 4,6 Shelf 7 Storage space 8 Article 10 Crane 12 Terminal 14,16 Entry / exit station 18 Lower frame 19 Travel path 20 Rail 22 Ceiling guide rail 24 Upper frame 26 Mast 28 Ladder 30 Travel mechanism 32 Elevating platform 34 Elevating mechanism 40 free space

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An automatic warehouse, comprising: a shelf for storing articles, a loading / unloading station, a crane for moving articles, and a control terminal for designating the operation of the crane. An automatic warehouse, wherein the automatic warehouse is configured so that maintenance can be set, and an article at a predetermined position on a shelf is retracted during crane maintenance. 2. The automatic warehouse according to claim 1, wherein at the time of maintenance of the crane, an article at least at an upper position and a lower position of a shelf end is retracted. 3. The automatic warehouse according to claim 1, wherein a mode for returning the evacuated articles to the original position on the shelf after maintenance is completed is provided in the control terminal.