Patent ID: 7431275

Claim:
A method for supplying individual quantities of flat part products of different types comprising at least partly different rectangular formats, to a serial further processing, the method comprising the steps of: producing a row of part product groups, each group comprising one of said quantities of part products, by superimposing a plurality of supply streams ( 1 . 1 , 1 . 2 , 1 . 3 ) comprising the part products of one type (A, B, C) each, wherein the supply streams to be superimposed are of identical speed and identical supply capacity, wherein the part products of the supply streams overlap one another, and wherein the supply streams are superimposed in such a manner that within each part product group produced, one edge of each part product is aligned with an edge of the remaining part products and the aligned edges face a common side of the row, wherein the one aligned edge of the part products within each part product group is parallel to the longitudinal direction of the row, winding the row in a first direction (D) onto a roll core to form a roll, restoring the row by unwinding it from the roll in a second direction (E), opposite to the first direction (D), the step of restoring being independent of time and place of the steps of producing and winding the row, successively separating from the front end of the restored row ( 2 ) part product groups ( 7 ) by gripping, with a gripper, each part product group from said common side of the row in the range ( 10 ) of said aligned edges and removing it from the head end of the row in a third direction (F) substantially perpendicular to the second direction (E) and parallel to a plane of the flat portion of the products in the row, and supplying the gripped and removed part product groups immediately to the further processing.