Patent ID: 7104029

Claim:
A method for carrying out and subsequently verifying substitutions and/or adjustments of mechanical components in an automatic packaging machine during a change over to package products of a different size comprising: providing a computerized unit for verifying and storing instructions related to each operation necessary for changing the automatic packaging machine for processing articles of different size, said operations including substitution of specific mechanical components and/or adjustment of spatial positions of specific mechanical components of said machine; providing portable processing and recording means having code reading means for reading identifying codes associated with said specific mechanical components; recalling information elements relevant to the size change over stored in said computerized unit and transferring said information elements for display on said portable means, said information elements being a list of mechanical components to substitute and/or components whose positioning is to be adjusted together with information elements relevant to the mechanical components; reading the list, and locating the specific mechanical components to substitute and/or components whose positioning is to be adjusted, and, a) for each mechanical component to be substituted: i) using said code reading means of said portable processing means for detecting said component identifying code on a mechanical component, comparing the detected code with the information elements stored in the processing means, and verifying the correctness of the mechanical component designated for substitution; ii) using said code reading means of said portable processing means for detecting a substitute component identifying code on a mechanical component and comparing the substitute identifying code for verifying the identity of the substitute component; and, iii) substituting the verified substitute component on the machine; b) and for each component whose position is to be adjusted: i) locating the component to be adjusted, using said code reading means of said portable processing means for detecting said component identifying code, comparing the detected code with the information elements stored in the processing means, to verify that the correct component has been located; ii) displaying on said portable processing means information elements relevant to a new positioning of the component to be adjusted; and iii) carrying out the adjustment of said component while verifying the exact correspondence of said adjustment with said information elements displayed on said portable processing means.