Patent ID: 7698018

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; 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; 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; aligning means for aligning in a perpendicular direction, a plurality of rings which have been measured in size and aligned in a horizontal direction before being conveyed into the first storage means by the first convey means; and the aligning means including: horizontal aligning means having a plurality of holding means for holding a plurality of rings arranged in the horizontal direction; perpendicular aligning means having a plurality of holding means for holding a plurality of rings arranged in the perpendicular direction; convey means for moving the perpendicular aligning means in the aligning direction of a plurality of rings by the horizontal aligning means and lifting up so that the holding means of the perpendicular aligning means successively oppose to the holding means of the horizontal aligning means; moving means for successively moving a plurality of rings held by the holding means of the horizontal aligning means onto the holding means of the perpendicular aligning means in synchronization with the movement of the perpendicular aligning means by the convey means; and convey-out means for conveying out the plurality of rings held by the holding means of the perpendicular aligning means while maintaining the arrangement in the perpendicular direction.