Patent ID: 7251545

Claim:
A ring management system for management of a plurality of rings having elasticity in the radius direction for constituting a stacked ring; the system comprising: size measurement means for measuring size of the ring; first convey means for moving the ring whose size has been measured by the size measurement means; first storage means having a plurality of storage positions for storing rings conveyed in by the first convey means; second convey means for conveying out the rings from the first storage means; and control means, the control means including: memory means for storing for each of the rings, size measured by the size measurement means in association with the storage position in the first storage means; first selection means for selecting a ring for constituting a stacked ring according to the ring size stored in the memory means; and first instruction means to instruct the second convey means so as to convey out the ring selected by the first selection means from the storage position in the first storage means corresponding to the size of the ring stored by the memory means; wherein the size measurement means, the convey means, and the storage means include holding means for holding a circular ring in substantially elliptic shape, the system further comprising: third convey means for conveying rings out of the first storage means; and second storage means having a plurality of storage positions for storing rings conveyed in by the third convey means; the control means further comprising: second selection means for selecting a ring from a group of rings having identical sizes, when a number of rings in the group reaches a predetermined number or more; and second instruction means for instructing the third convey means to convey out the ring selected by the second selection means from the storage position in the first storage means stored in association with the ring storage time or size and convey it into the second storage means.