Patent ID: 8306647
Filing Date: 2012-11-06
Classification: B23Q,G05B,Y02P

Abstract:
1. A flexible manufacturing system comprising: a plurality of pallets each for attaching an ante-machining workpiece thereto; a machine tool for machining an ante-machining workpiece attached to a selected one of the pallets to form a post-machining product being a finished product or a semimanufactured product; a plurality of ante-machining product baskets each for containing ante-machining products being blank materials or semimanufactured products which are ante-machining workpieces to be attached to the pallets; a pallet rack capable of storing the plurality of pallets therein; a basket rack capable of storing the plurality of ante-machining product baskets therein; a basket loading station for temporarily placing a selected one of the ante-machining product baskets thereon in moving an ante-machining product contained in the selected one of the ante-machining product baskets to a selected one of the pallets; a pallet loading station provided to be adjacent to the basket loading station for temporarily placing the selected one of the pallets thereon in moving the ante-machining product to the selected one of the pallets; a transfer device for transferring the selected one of the pallets between the pallet rack and the pallet loading station and for transferring the selected one of the ante-machining product baskets between the basket rack and the basket loading station; and a control apparatus for performing the transfer control of the transfer device; wherein the control apparatus includes: storage means for storing correlation information which correlates the ante-machining workpieces to be attached to the pallets with the ante-machining products contained in the ante-machining product baskets; determination means for determining an ante-machining product corresponding to the ante-machining workpiece to be attached to the selected one of the pallets in connection with transferring the selected one of the pallets to the pallet loading station; and transfer control means for controlling the transfer device to transfer one of the ante-machining product baskets containing the determined ante-machining products, from the basket rack to the basket loading station in connection with transferring the selected one of the pallets to the pallet loading station.