System for sorting commercial articles and method therefor
First Claim
1. A commercial article sorting system comprising:
- a sorting block having a plurality of slots to receive commercial articles according to sorting criteria;
a reading means to read the data of sorting criteria attached to single commercial articles or groups of commercial articles; and
a controller which notifies a slot for a given commercial good based on the data regarding the sorting criteria transmitted by the reading means, wherein a direction indicator is provided to the sorting block so that the nominated slot may receive said commercial article under the control of the controller.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A direction indicator placed on one site of a sorting block indicates, for a given good, the direction towards a nominated slot through which the good is to be placed in the block. This arrangement makes it possible for the hauler to immediately put a good into a nominated slot without looking around at sorting blocks at large, which will lead to the improvement of work efficiency. Moreover, because this will moderate the burden imposed on the hauler, the number of wrongly hauled goods would be greatly reduced.
If a good is passed through a wrong slot, it is recognized by a sensor and then an alarming means is activated to generate a buzzing sound or a blinking light to alarm. This arrangement will make it possible to greatly reduce the number of wrongly hauled goods.
In association with the entry of every good, the name of the provider, as well as the name of the manufacturer of the good, the property of the good and the number of its scheduled input, is given because the provider can feed his name through an input feeding means.
This arrangement will make it possible to efficiently manage inflow goods according to the name of providers, simply dependent on identification codes generally attached to goods such as a JAN code or ITF code.
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Citations
68 Claims
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1. A commercial article sorting system comprising:
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a sorting block having a plurality of slots to receive commercial articles according to sorting criteria;
a reading means to read the data of sorting criteria attached to single commercial articles or groups of commercial articles; and
a controller which notifies a slot for a given commercial good based on the data regarding the sorting criteria transmitted by the reading means, wherein a direction indicator is provided to the sorting block so that the nominated slot may receive said commercial article under the control of the controller. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. An inflow article management system for managing the inflow of commercial articles comprising:
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an input feeding means through which a vendor can feed his identification information when he puts his article into an inflow line;
an article identification information reading means to read the information which is attached to an article and is related with its attributes;
an article information storing means to store an article information table connecting the vendor identification information with the identification information of articles and the number of the articles to be received; and
an inflow article information control means which, when the identification information is fed through the input feeding means by the vendor and the article information is read, compares those inputs with the article information table, compares the number of articles currently provided by the vendor with the number of the same articles to be received, and writes the number of currently provided articles into the article information storing means. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50)
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18. An inflow article management system comprising:
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a plurality of inflow conveyors on which vendors put their articles;
a routing conveyor to which articles on the inflow conveyors are guided and from which articles are sent to a next step;
a monitoring means to monitor the number of articles on each inflow conveyor; and
a guide control means to guide articles to the routing conveyor from an inflow conveyor to another in the order of the number of articles on the conveyor, based on the output from the monitoring means.
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19. A movable loader in an article shipping system whose carrier platform is movably placed between a storage rack to store articles and a delivery conveyor placed in parallel with the rack so that the carrier platform through which articles can be transferred from the rack to the conveyor may move along the delivery conveyor.
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27. A shipment sorting system including:
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transferring unit cargoes containing articles to be shipped from an inflow area through a conveyor to a shipment sorting area;
sorting cargoes according to different shipment requirements in the shipment sorting area; and
transferring sorted unit cargoes to delivery carts for shipment, comprising a buffer storage line to store unit cargoes which have been transferred from the inflow area through the conveyor to the shipment sorting area.
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38. A sorting method for sorting cargoes on a routing conveyor according to their specified requirements wherein cargoes that do not meet the requirements are returned to an upstream line to circulate.
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39. A sorting method for sorting cargoes on a routing conveyor according to their specified requirements wherein cargoes that do not meet the requirements are transferred into a routing line to circulate through the line where a sorting requirement is predetermined, as soon as the cargoes are found not to meet their specified requirements.
- 51. A recording medium to record a sorting program necessary for sorting cargoes on a routing line according to their specified requirements which determines which decision is appropriate for a given cargo, returning it to an upstream line to circulate because it does not meet its specified requirement, or discharging it to a downstream line because it meets its specified requirement, during the passage of the cargo through the routing line.
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53. An article sorting system comprising:
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a first conveyor to convey a tray containing articles to be sorted;
a second conveyor branching off from the first conveyor, and a plurality of sorting lines containing sorting racks having a plurality of slots leading to containers into which articles are placed according to their sorting categories, and placed opposite to the second conveyor;
a sorter to guide a tray conveyed through the first conveyor to one of the sorting lines;
a reading means to read the identification information of a tray conveyed by the first conveyor;
a memory means to store an article information table connecting the identification information of a tray with the information of the articles contained in that tray, and the arrangement pattern of the slots of each sorting line; and
a sorter control means to determine an appropriate sorting line for a tray and control the sorter to guide the tray to the sorting line, after having referred to the identification information of the tray read by the reading means, and the article information table and the arrangement patterns of slots stored in the memory means. - View Dependent Claims (54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63)
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64. An article sorting system comprising:
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a first conveyor to convey trays containing articles to be sorted;
a second conveyor branching off from the first conveyor, and a plurality of sorting lines containing sorting racks having a plurality of slots leading to containers into which articles are placed according to their sorting categories, and placed opposite to the second conveyor;
a sorter to guide a tray conveyed through the first conveyor to one of the sorting lines;
a reading means to read the identification information of a tray conveyed by the first conveyor;
a memory means to store an article information table connecting the identification information of a tray with the information of the articles contained in that tray, and the arrangement pattern of the slots of each sorting line;
a sorter control means to determine an appropriate sorting line for a tray and control the sorter to guide the tray to the sorting line, after having referred to the identification information of the tray read by the reading means, and the article information table and the arrangement patterns of slots stored in the memory means; and
a direction indicating means provided to each of the plural blocks introduced into a sorting rack so as to indicate by an arrow the No. of the nominated slot and its direction. - View Dependent Claims (65, 66, 67, 68)
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Specification