JP2533666B2 - Article management method in automatic article handling system - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to an article management method in an automatic article handling system, and particularly when the article is in a moving state or is being processed, the article automatic handling system is impaired. The present invention relates to an article management method in an article automatic handling system, which is suitable for surely returning the article to the original storage cell even if the above occurs.

[Conventional technology]

In various fields such as finance, securities, distribution, and manufacturing,
Online automation of business is progressing. Along with this, the storage amount of various data such as online data is rapidly increasing. Many users have a storage of a large amount of information media in which data is recorded, and an operation method is used in which the media necessary for daily work are put in and out.

Conventionally, the work of taking out the necessary information medium from the storage and mounting it on the recording / reproducing apparatus and the operation of demounting the used information medium from the recording / reproducing apparatus and returning it to the storage are performed as follows. That is, the user requests the host computer for a process of recording data on the medium or a process of reproducing the data from the medium. When the host computer receives the request, it asks the worker about the medium name and
Notify the storage location / recording / reproducing device used for processing.
Further, when the processing of the medium is completed, the recording / reproducing device in which the medium is mounted and the place where the medium is returned are notified. The worker performs the mounting work and the demounting work based on these information.

In this way, since the work was done manually, it is at the discretion of the worker to return the medium in use to the original storage even if a failure occurs during the work. It was possible.

On the other hand, with the rapid increase in the amount of data handled by computer systems, the number of man-hours required for mounting and demounting information media has become enormous. Therefore, an automatic medium handling system, which is equipped with an information medium storage shelf, a plurality of recording / reproducing devices, and a plurality of handling devices, and which automatically performs a mounting operation and a demounting operation, has been attracting attention. As a device related to this type of device, for example, the invention disclosed in JP-A-50-153618, the invention disclosed in JP-A-58-64665, and JP-A-60-2
There is the invention disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 24143.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

In the above-described automatic medium handling system that automatically performs the mounting work and the demounting work, since the location of the medium is not known to the worker, if a failure occurs during the handling or processing of the medium, the medium is manually handled. It will be impossible to return to the original storage shelf. In this case, when the next process using the medium is attempted, there is a problem that the process cannot be performed because the medium is not in the storage shelf or the storage cell.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and in particular, when an article is in a moving state or is being processed, even if a failure occurs in the article automatic handling system, It is an object of the present invention to provide an article management method in an article automatic handling system, which is suitable for surely returning to the storage rack or the storage cell.

[Means for solving the problem]

An article management method for an article automatic handling system according to the present invention includes: a storage box having a plurality of storage cells for storing articles, a plurality of processing devices for processing attached articles, and articles from the plurality of storage cells. A handling mechanism for respectively taking out and moving the articles, taking out and moving the articles from the plurality of processing apparatuses, mounting the articles on the plurality of processing apparatuses, and storing the articles in the storage cells, and instructing the handling mechanism. Giving and taking out the articles from the plurality of storage cells, taking out and moving the articles from the plurality of processing apparatuses, attaching the articles to the plurality of processing apparatuses, and storing the articles in the storage cells. And a control device for instructing the plurality of processing devices to process the mounted articles, the handling mechanism and the plurality of processing devices provided in the control device. Applied to an article management method in an article automatic handling system configured to include storage means for storing information indicating the presence or absence of an article and a cell number of a storage cell in which the article is to be stored It has the following characteristics.

That is, when the automatic article handling system is stopped due to the occurrence of a failure and then restarted, the control device refers to the information regarding the location of the article from the storage means, and as a result, the article is grasped by the handling mechanism or processed by the processing device. When it is determined that the article is mounted, the handling mechanism is instructed to take out the article from the processing device, move the article, and store the article in the storage cell of the storage box according to the information regarding the location of the article. There is.

Further, the control device has a correspondence table of an item number and the storage cell in which the item is stored, and stores the item number in the storage means as information regarding the location of the item.

[Action]

According to the present invention, since the information regarding the location of the article is stored in the control device of the article automatic handling system, when the failure occurs during the movement or processing of the article and the article is restarted, the location of the article is related. See the information
It is possible to return the article to the proper storage cell.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to examples shown in the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.
As shown in the figure, the storage 1 is configured to include a plurality of cells 2, and each cell 2 stores an article. As shown in the drawing, the handling mechanism 3 moves in the horizontal direction A, the vertical direction B, the front-rear direction C, and the rotation direction D, grips the article in the target storage cell 2, and transfers it to the target processing devices 4a and 4b. An operation of mounting the articles and accommodating the articles processed in the processing 4a and 4b in the storage cell 2 is performed. The control mechanism 5 controls the operation of the handling mechanism 3 and further controls the processing of the articles in the processing devices 4a and 4b. The control mechanism 5 includes a storage device 6
Is built in.

2 shows an example of the cell number given to the storage cell 2 shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 shows the location of the article stored in the storage device 6 in the control mechanism 5 shown in FIG. Information.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. In order to store the articles in the storage cell 2 in the processing devices 4a and 4b, the host device 7 instructs the control mechanism 5 to move the articles existing in the storage cell with the cell number N to the processing device with the device number M. Give instructions. When the control mechanism 5 receives the above instruction, it instructs the handling mechanism 3 to "take out the article in the storage cell of the cell number N", and the handling mechanism 3 physically handles the cell number N and the plurality of storage cells 2. 2 is recognized from the correspondence table shown in FIG. 2, moved in the horizontal direction A, the vertical direction B, the front-rear direction C, and the rotation direction D, and the article is taken out from the storage cell with the cell number N. At the time when the handling mechanism 3 takes out the article, the control mechanism 5 sets “N” as the storage cell number corresponding to the handling mechanism 3 and “present” as the presence / absence of the article in the information indicating the location of the article shown in FIG. It is stored in the storage device 6.

Next, the control mechanism 5 instructs the handling mechanism 3 to
The instruction of "loading the article to the processing device with the device number M" is instructed, and the handling mechanism 3 moves in the same manner as described above to load the article into the processing device with the device number M. At the time when the handling mechanism 3 mounts the article, the control mechanism 5 sets the cell number of the storage cell corresponding to the processing device of the apparatus number M to “N”, the article presence / absence to “present”, and the article presence / absence corresponding to the handling mechanism 3. It is stored in the storage device 6 as “absent”.

When the processing of the article in the processing device M is completed, the higher-level device 7 instructs the control mechanism 5 to “move from the processing device having the device number M to the original storage cell”. Control mechanism 5
When receiving the above instruction, the instruction instructs the handling mechanism 3 to "take out the article in the processing device with the device number M", and the handling mechanism 3 moves from the processing device M in the same manner as described above. Remove the item. At the time when the handling mechanism 3 takes out the article, the control mechanism 5 sets the cell number of the storage cell corresponding to the handling mechanism 3 to be the same as the cell number corresponding to the processing device of the apparatus number M, and “presence” of the article presence or absence.
In addition, the presence / absence of an article corresponding to the processing device having the device number M is stored in the storage device 6 as “absent”. Here, the cell number of the storage cell corresponding to the handling device 3 is the original storage cell number “N” of the article attached to the processing device with the device number M. The control mechanism 5 can recognize the cell number “N” of the original storage cell of the article held by the handling mechanism 3 by referring to the information in the storage device 6.
The control mechanism 5 instructs the handling mechanism 3 to "store the article in the storage cell with the cell number N", and the handling mechanism 3 moves in the same manner as described above to load the article into the storage cell with the cell number N. Store. When the handling mechanism 3 stores the article, the control mechanism 5 stores the information about the presence or absence of the article corresponding to the handling mechanism 3 in the storage device 6 as “absent”.

The information on the movement of the article and the location of the article is updated by the above procedure.

When a failure such as a power failure occurs during the movement or processing of the article, after the failure is recovered, the control mechanism 5 returns the article to the storage cell in the following procedure.

First, the control mechanism 5 refers to the information regarding the location of the article stored in the storage device 6, and when the information regarding the presence or absence of the article corresponding to the handling mechanism 3 is “present”, the handling mechanism 3 grasps the article. And recognize that the item needs to be returned to its original storage cell. The control mechanism 5 reads the cell number “N” of the storage cell corresponding to the handling mechanism 3,
The handling mechanism 5 is instructed to "store the article in the storage cell having the cell number N", and the handling mechanism 3 executes the instruction in the same manner as described above. The control mechanism 5 updates the information regarding the whereabouts of the article in the same manner as described above. Next, the control mechanism 5 refers to the information regarding the presence / absence of articles corresponding to the respective processing apparatuses 4a and 4b, and searches for the processing apparatus having the presence / absence of articles. If there is a processing apparatus (apparatus number M) for which the presence / absence of the article is present, it is recognized that the article is attached to the processing apparatus with the apparatus number M and the article needs to be returned to the original storage cell. To do. The control mechanism 5 reads the cell number “n” of the storage cell corresponding to the processing device with the device number M, and operates in the same manner as when the “upper device moves the processing device M to the original storage cell” is instructed. Then, the article is stored in the original storage cell (cell number n).

In the present embodiment, the handling mechanism 3 and the processing devices 4a, 4b.
Although the presence / absence of the article in the inside is stored in the storage device 6, the presence / absence of the article can be recognized by a physical means to perform the above operation.

Further, in the present embodiment, the cell number of the storage cell is stored, but the number given to each article may be stored as the information regarding the location of the article. In that case, it is necessary to equip the control device 5 with a correspondence table of the numbers of the articles and the storage cells in which the articles are stored.

Further, in the present embodiment, the description has been given assuming that there are two processing devices and one article handling mechanism, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the number of processing devices and handling mechanisms is arbitrary. good.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, since the information about the location of the article is stored, the article can be returned to the original storage cell when the failure such as the power failure is recovered. Regardless of whereabouts, the indication can be given as if the item were in the storage cell. This allows
It is possible to maintain the availability of the goods after the disaster recovery.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an automatic article handling system to which the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing an example of numbers given to storage cells, and FIG. 3 is an article stored in a control mechanism. It is a figure which shows an example of the information regarding the whereabouts of. 1 ... storage, 3 ... handling mechanism, 4a, 4b ... processing device, 5 ... control mechanism, 6 ... storage device, 7 ... host device.

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A storage box provided with a plurality of storage cells for storing articles, a plurality of processing devices for processing the mounted articles, taking out and moving the articles from the plurality of storage cells, and the plurality of processing cells. A handling mechanism for respectively taking out and moving the article from the processing apparatus, mounting the article on the plurality of processing apparatuses, and storing the article in the storage cell, and from the plurality of storage cells by giving an instruction to the handling mechanism. To take out and move the articles, to take out and move the articles from the plurality of processing apparatuses, to attach the articles to the plurality of processing apparatuses and to store the articles in the storage cells, and to cause the plurality of processing apparatuses to A control device for giving an instruction to process an attached article, information provided as to whether or not the article is present in each of the handling mechanism and the plurality of processing devices, and the article is stored in the control device. Be In an article management method in an article automatic handling system configured to include a storage unit that stores information regarding the location of an article having a cell number of a storage cell, the article automatic handling system is stopped due to a failure and then restarted. At this time, the control device refers to the information regarding the location of the article from the storage means, and as a result, when it is determined that the article is grasped by the handling mechanism or attached to the treatment apparatus, the article is taken out from the treatment apparatus. And an article management method in an automatic article handling system, characterized by instructing a handling mechanism to move an article and store the article in a storage cell of the storage box in accordance with information regarding the location of the article. 2. The control device has a correspondence table of an article number and the storage cell in which the article is stored, and stores the article number in the storage means as information on the location of the article. The article management method in the article automatic handling system according to claim 1.