SORTING AND WAITING STORAGE SYSTEM FOR PERISHABLE GOODS COMING FROM PRODUCTION FOR DELIVERY AND PACKED IN TRANSPORT BOXES

Abstract: A sorting and waiting storage system for goods that are to be packed into boxes, that come substantially continuously and mainly simultaneously as different product sorts from the production (1), in particular perishable goods, such as bakery products, in which system the goods are packed by the product sort into one or several boxes of specified size. Characteristically of the invention, the boxes packaged in accordance with a single-delivery order of an individual customer are transferred (3, 4, 5, 6) from each product sort packaging station (2) as an automatically controlled line to the waiting position of each customer, the boxes are stacked to a stack required by a single delivery consisting of different product sorts in each waiting station (7), as well as guided to the transportation (10) in the customer sequence required by the transport route, as the said stacks.

Description: Sorting and waiting storage system for perishable goods 'coming from production for delivery and packed in transport boxes The present invention is concerned with a sorting and waiting storage system for perishable goods that come from production substantially continuously from different production lines as different product sorts substantially simultaneously and that are packed immediately upon production into transport boxes con¬ stituting parts of the delivery transport equipment. It is typical of the product concerned that it must be delivered as soon as possible and, in view of the delivery, as purposefully sorted as batches of boxes. A typical example of the production of the sort concerned is confectionery, which is produced for a large number of customers. In order to provide a rapid delivery to the customers, the products concerned are delivered to the customers by means of relatively small transportation units, and the transport routes are divided optimally for each transportation unit. In such a case, the transportation units may drive through their delivery routes several times per day in accordance with certain delivery schedules. However, in order that it should be possible to follow the delivery schedules, it is necessary that, when a trans¬ portation unit arrives at the starting point, there is a load ready waiting for it, which said load is grouped in accordance with the delivery points on the route and with the orders of the customers located at the various delivery points and which load is provided with consignment notes prepared for each customer, the transport capacity of the transportation unit being additionally taken into account optimally in the grouping of the said load. For this purpose, various intermediate storage or waiting storage and sorting systems have been developed, a typical feature of all of which is, how¬ ever, quite high requirement of human labour since man performs assembly and sorting of loads as an essential component in the systems. Thus, at decisive points, these systems involve the "human factor", which results in errors and deficiencies in the consignments as well as in operational slowness, which restricts the capa¬ city of the system. The said prior-art systems work tolerably well as an extension of production processes of the sort in which a few different products are pro¬ duced and, moreover, delivered as large quantities to each customer, whereby several transport boxes at a time may be used as a measure for such quantities. As an example in the field of bakery products might be mentioned loaves of bread. In these prior-art systems, the loaves coming from each bread oven are packed at the end of the oven into transport boxes, e.g. so and so many loaves per box. The packed boxes proceed as lines of their own to the sorting stage, where a person picks up the necessary number of boxes out of the line of each line of bread in accordance with the order of the customer, and, of these boxes, forms stacks containing at the maximum a certain number of boxes for transportation, and provides the line of stacks destined to each customer with a consignment note. In addition to this, the system may include equalizing devices placed after the sorting stage, which said devices rearrange the stacks that have remained lower than the maximum number of boxes to full-height transport stacks so as to utilize the maximum capacity of the transportation unit. An alternative possibility may be that the driver carries out the said equalizing when he loads his transport vehicle. This, however, makes the performance of the loading stage a great deal slower. However, expressly when confectionery products are concerned, which come from the production as short successive series and as many different product sorts, and which are additionally packed into the boxes of the individual customers as even highly varying quan¬ tities in accordance with small batch orders, man would be quite an unreliable link of limited capacity in the sorting system. Accordingly, by means of the present invention, attempts have been made to provide a sorting and waiting storage system expressly for confectionery products, or for products coming from a process of corresponding sort, wherein, however, for man, being still indispensable, a duty has been assigned which requires concluding of maximum simplicity in the filling of the transport boxes immediately at the production stage of the products, whereas the system, controlled automatically, takes care of the sorting, transferring and stacking of the product boxes to make ready transport batches , without interference by man. The attached drawing is a schematical illustration of an equipment used in order to carry the system into effect. The equipment shown includes five independent packaging stations 1 , which are directly connected with the discharge ends of the product ovens, not shown. The transport boxes packed at the feed stations move onto waiting conveyors 2 belonging to the equipment, and from them further, in accordance with a traffic order regulated by the system control, onto the feed, conveyors 3, of which there are two placed side by side in the embodiment shown. These feed conveyors carry the boxes to the rationing stops 4, which guide the boxes, obeying the system control, to the customer position conveyors 5, from which the boxes are picked up by stacking wagons 6 and lowered, still in accord- ance with orders given by the system control, to the stacking stations of the various customer positions 7. From the customer positions, the stacks of boxes move to the delivery conveyors 8, and from there further to the assembly conveyor, from which the line of stacks is passed to either one of the loading stations 10. Under these circumstances, the equipment embodiment shown is provided with two levels, the change of level taking place when the boxes move from the customer position conveyors 5, transferred by the stacking wagons 6 , to the stacking stations for customer posi¬ tions 7. Each packaging station is provided with a monitor, which gives the number of products for each customer, each product, and for each transport box under control of the computer included in the system and analyzing the orders of the customers. If, for example, at the maximum 30 pieces of the product coming from the production line concerned can be packed into each of the identical boxes constituting parts of the transportation system and if the order of the customer comprises 40 pieces of the product concerned, after the preceding batch has been packed and delivered into the system, the number 30 appears in the monitor. The packaging person takes an empty box (cleaned after the preceding transportation cycle) from the conveyor that delivers the empty boxes and packs thirty product units into it. Hereupon he/she pushes the filled box onto the conveyor passing into the system. At this stage, the system preferably includes a detector which notes the box coming into the system and acknowledges the receipt of the box unit. Hereupon, for the packing of the rest of the delivery batch, the number 10 appears in the monitor, in compliance with which the packaging person fills 10 products into the next box and pushes the box forwards. The system also acknow¬ ledges the receipt of this box and moves over to the order data of the next customer, giving the number instruction concerning him into the monitor. A corres¬ ponding operation takes place in all the other production points as well. After the packaging station, the acknow¬ ledged boxes move, either one by one, one after the other, or 2, 3 or any other number of boxes that is found suitable as stacked one on the other, as a line, onto the waiting conveyor, from which the lines coming from different product lines move onto the feed con¬ veyor or possibly onto several parallel feed conveyors so as to be shifted to individual waiting positions of each customer. The automatics of the system takes care that the product box lines are shifted to the said customer positions in the sequence that is most advan¬ tageous in view of the capacity of the system. Each of the customer positions has preferably two stations, of which the first one is a stacking station and the second one the customer station proper. The boxes arriving at each customer position are stacked at the stacking station to make stacks of a specified number of boxes, e.g. 12 boxes. After a stack has become full, it is shifted to the customer station, and the assembly of the next stack is started at the stacking station. After the transportation unit has come to the final end, i.e., at the same time, to the initial end of its delivery cycle, i.e. to fetch its new load for the route, the driver gives the system his own call signal, e.g. by means of a terminal provided at the loading site. Thereby, the stacks placed at the customer stations start moving onto the loading con- veyors in the sequence controlled by the logic of the system, whereby, out of the stacks destined for each customer, the full-height stack placed in the customer station is taken first and, thereupon, a stack present in the stacking station if it is of full height or contains at least a certain minimum number of boxes. In such a case, in view of smoothness of the delivery, it is possible to accept for transportation a stack that is, e.g., 2 or 3 boxes lower than full. By means of a printer placed at the transportation site, a consignment note is also prepared for the transport batch of each customer, which said note precisely states the factually delivered quantity of goods as well as, moreover, states that a deficiency of delivery, possibly attributable to an excessively low stack in the stacking station, will be shipped with the next delivery. In particular, in connection with the dis- charge of the customer positions, it should be noticed that the system permits the discharge of a customer station belonging to a customer position for transport even if filling of the station were going on at the same time in the stacking station belonging to the same customer position. In respect of its control, the sorting and waiting storage system concerned also permits modifi¬ cation of the loads coming from the system for trans¬ portation, for, on his arrival at the loading site, the person fetching the load may, by means of the terminal at the loading site, check the number of boxes that have become ready for his standard route in the customer positions. If this number if clearly low as compared with the capacity of the transportation unit, by means of the terminal he may feed into the system an alternative route expanded over the standard route, being thereby able to utilize the transport capacity of his transportation unit more efficiently. By means of the terminal, he has the possibility of also otherwise modifying his route system by to it adding, e.g., small customers naturally fitting into the system, to whom goods are possibly delivered less frequently than what would be required by the standard route. The control of the system also permits changing of packaging stations if a failure occurs in the packaging station of an oven in a situation in which the oven supplies ready product at a high speed and in which the operation is less intense at some other oven. Also, if one packaging station becomes congested, it is possible to use the packaging station of some other oven in order to relieve the situation if the control unit has been informed accordingly. The above example includes an application of the system expressly as a part of the delivery of con¬ fectionery products, but, in a corresponding way, it can also be applied to other delivery that requires speed, such as to the delivery of the products of sausage factories and processed-food factories, as well as, for example, to large-scale delivery of daily food portions.

Claims: WHAT IS CLAIMED IS: 1 Sorting and waiting storage system for goods that are to be packed into boxes,. that come substantially continuously and mainly simultaneously as different pro¬ duct sorts from the production (1), in particular peris¬ hable goods, such as bakery products, in which system the goods are packed (2) by the product sort into one or seve¬ ral boxes of specified size, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the boxes packaged in accordande with a single- delivery order of an individual customer are transferred (3,4,5,6) from each product sort packaging station (2) as an automatically controlled line to the waiting position of each customer, the boxes are stacked to a stack requi¬ red by a single delivery consisting of different product sorts in each waiting station (7), as well as guided to the transportation in the customer sequence required by the transport route, as the said stacks. 2 System as claimed in claim 1, c h a r a c ¬ t e r i z e d in that the boxes are transferred (3,4,5,6) from the packaging (2) to the waiting stations (7) as li¬ nes in which there are at the maximum 2 boxes placed one on top of the other. 3 System as claimed in claim 1 or 2, c h a r ¬ a c t e r i z e d in that the boxes are stacked in the waiting stations (7) in two stacks which contain at the maximum a specified number of boxes placed one on top of the other. 4 System as claimed in any of the above claims, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the stacks of boxes destined for each customer are provided with consignment notes on their transfer to the loading site (10) on the basis of the order data acknowledged or corrected by the packaging person. 5 System as claimed in any of the above claims, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the boxes are transfer¬ red (3,4,5,6) from the product sort packaging stations (2) to the waiting stations (7) at a level that is placed hig¬ her than the level reached by the maximum number of boxes in the waiting station (7). SUBSTITUTE: SKΞΓΓ

Inventors: ALANCO LARS-ERIK, ALANCO, LARS-ERIK
Applicants: SALO ESKO TEKNILLINEN TMSTO KY
Application year: 1985
Main classification: B65G47
IPC codes: B65G47