Patent ID: 7222719

Claim:
An apparatus adapted to transport and organize containers in a manufacturing operation, comprising; (A) an upstream conveyor assembly including a longitudinally extending first upstream conveyor and a longitudinally extending second upstream conveyor located alongside one another and having generally planar advance portions oriented at an oblique orientation angle with respect to one another, said upstream conveyor assembly having a load area at an upstream location thereof and operative to transport containers placed thereon in a downstream direction thereby to create a reservoir of containers at a downstream supply area thereof; (B) a downstream conveyor assembly including a plurality of bays each sized and adapted to receive a single container therein and operative to transport containers in the downstream direction from an intake location to a discharge location such that said containers will be discharged in single file at the discharge location, said downstream conveyor assembly operative to sequentially advance said bays past the intake location; and (C) a transfer assembly operative to sequentially remove selected containers one at a time from said reservoir and sequentially transport each said selected container to the intake location of said downstream conveyor assembly and thereafter deposit each selected container into a respective said bay as said bays are sequentially advanced past the intake location by said downstream conveyor assembly.