Rack transport control apparatus for a manufacturing line
First Claim
1. An apparatus for controlling transport of racks in a manufacturing line which includes a series of processes and has buffers associated with the respective processes for temporarily keeping racks carrying semimanufactured articles to be transported to the respective processes, the apparatus comprising:
- a host computer having a memory, and being in communication with the processes and with the buffers;
a carry-out request table stored in said memory for recording rack carry-out requests from the processes; and
said host computer including request monitoring means for monitoring the carry-out request table, the request monitoring means operating in response to detection of a carry-out request to output a transport command to transport a rack corresponding to the carry-out request to a next process only when the number of racks kept in buffer associated with a second next process of said rack is smaller than a predetermined value.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus is provided for controlling transport of racks in a manufacturing line which includes a series of processes and has buffers associated with the respective processes for temporarily keeping racks carrying semimanufactured articles to be transported to the respective processes. The apparatus includes a host computer having a memory and being in communication with the processes and with the buffers, and a carry-out request table stored in the memory for recording rack carry-out requests from the processes. The host computer includes request monitoring means for monitoring the carry-out request table. The request monitoring means operates in response to detection of a carry-out request to output a transport command to transport a rack corresponding to the carry-out request to a next process only when the number of racks kept in a buffer associated with a second next process of the rack is smaller than a predetermined value.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. An apparatus for controlling transport of racks in a manufacturing line which includes a series of processes and has buffers associated with the respective processes for temporarily keeping racks carrying semimanufactured articles to be transported to the respective processes, the apparatus comprising:
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a host computer having a memory, and being in communication with the processes and with the buffers; a carry-out request table stored in said memory for recording rack carry-out requests from the processes; and said host computer including request monitoring means for monitoring the carry-out request table, the request monitoring means operating in response to detection of a carry-out request to output a transport command to transport a rack corresponding to the carry-out request to a next process only when the number of racks kept in buffer associated with a second next process of said rack is smaller than a predetermined value. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. An apparatus for controlling transport of racks in a manufacturing line which includes a series of processes and has buffers associated with the respective processes for temporarily keeping racks carrying semimanufactured articles to be transported to the respective processes, the apparatus comprising:
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a host computer having a memory, and being in communication with the processes and with the buffers; a carry-in request table stored in said memory for recording rack carry-in requests from the processes; and said host computer including request monitoring means for monitoring the carry-in request table, the request monitoring means operating in response to detection of a carry-in request to select a rack to be carried out of the buffer associated with the process from which the carry-in request has been output, and outputs a transport command to transport the selected rack to said process from which the carry-in request has been output only when the number of racks kept in a buffer associated with a process subsequent to said process from which the carry-in request has been output is smaller than a predetermined value. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification