JP7691602B2 - High-speed autoloading system and high-speed autoloading method using said system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention aims to automate and speed up the process of arranging fresh foods such as meat in crates in fresh food processing centers and the like.

Traditionally, most fresh foods such as meat sold at supermarkets and other stores are processed at locations called "fresh food processing centers," where the fresh foods are processed, packaged in individual containers, and delivered to each store. In these processes, stackable containers called "crates," such as the one shown in C of Figure 7, are widely used as they are highly suitable.

Crate C is generally made of plastic material, and has a number of through holes in a lattice pattern on the bottom to reduce weight and improve drainage. The frame shape is designed to allow the crates to be stacked stably. Note that crate is synonymous with "container" and there is no difference between the two, but since it is common to call it a "crate" in the technical field to which this invention pertains, the term "crate" will be used consistently in the following explanation.

At the fresh food processing center, fresh food is packaged by placing appropriately processed fresh food on a food tray and covering the top with plastic film. At this time, labels with information such as the food's name, type, and price are also affixed. Based on the delivery quantity information for each delivery destination, the packaged fresh food in the tray is packed into crate C, and a crate label with the delivery destination, product name, and quantity information printed on it is affixed to crate C. Crate C is then stacked by store and type, and prepared for delivery to each store in a storage facility within the fresh food processing center.

However, in such fresh produce processing centers, there is always a demand to improve work efficiency by automating and speeding up operations. This is because improved work efficiency makes it possible to further pursue cost reductions, avoid quality declines and long operating hours, improve the work environment, and alleviate labor shortages. Furthermore, since fresh foods basically need to be handled in a low-temperature environment of 4°C or less, improving work efficiency through automation and speeding up also meets this demand. For this reason, efforts are being made to automate and speed up many tasks in fresh produce processing centers.

However, due to the characteristics of fresh food packaging and crates, there are tasks that require human intervention and are extremely difficult to automate or speed up. There are two main tasks: one is to unstack empty crates that have been stacked, and the other is to gently line up food trays filled with fresh food inside the empty crates.

[Taking apart stacked empty crates]
This work is required when the crates used have a stacking function as well as a nesting function, which allows the overall height of the crates when empty are stacked lower than the overall height of the crates when filled with products.

This function is generally achieved by changing the orientation of the upper and lower crates by 180 degrees. Therefore, if the crates are all stacked in the same orientation, they can be stacked in a stacked state, while if they are stacked with the orientation of each crate alternating by 180 degrees, they can be stacked in a nested state. Note that crates like this are already a publicly known technology, and are disclosed, for example, in Patent Document 1 (JP Patent Publication 2007-137479).

After the fresh food is delivered to each store, the crates are returned empty to the fresh food processing center and reused. At this time, in order to save space during storage and transportation, once the crates are emptied, if the crates are nestable, they are stacked in a nested state until the food trays are placed back into the crates.

Therefore, at fresh produce processing centers, when it is time to repack the crates, the nested crates must be disassembled one layer at a time, and then the orientation of the crates must be alternated by 180 degrees so that they can be stacked again. However, these tasks have not yet been adequately automated, and the problem of worker intervention being difficult to avoid has not been resolved.

In addition, there are prior art devices that can disassemble nested stacked crates one level at a time, but these are extremely inefficient because they require disassembly starting from the bottom up and the orientation of the crates must be changed manually (Patent Documents 2 and 3).

[The task of gently arranging food trays containing fresh produce inside an empty crate]
This task has not yet been automated. This is due to the characteristics of fresh food packaging and the fact that many of the products themselves are delicate. For the task of arranging and placing, the most common methods are to use gripping or suction, or to use a shuttle conveyor (an extendable conveyor that shortens from the extended end and sequentially drops the transported items). However, the gripping or suction method is not suitable for packaging fresh foods because the plastic film covering the food tray is very easily torn, and coupled with the thickness and shape of the food tray, it is also not suitable for packaging fresh foods. In addition, the shuttle conveyor method is also not suitable for packaging fresh foods because the impact of the drop (drop) damages the fresh foods. Therefore, the problem of the necessity for worker intervention to gently arrange and place food trays containing fresh foods in an empty crate has not been resolved.

The existence of these tasks that cannot be automated requires human intervention, but tasks that require human intervention are clearly inferior to automated tasks in terms of accuracy and speed. Furthermore, in the current situation of chronic labor shortages, there is a strong demand from the workplace for the promotion of task automation.

The task of sorting items into crates based on the information printed on the labels requires both speed and accuracy, which places a huge mental burden on workers. Furthermore, repeatedly carrying crates weighing over 1 kg or food trays in a low-temperature environment places a huge physical burden on workers, and for these reasons there is a demand for automation of this process as well.

Furthermore, although fresh foods must be handled in a low-temperature environment, the work area where they are sorted into crates is often kept at a temperature above 4°C in order to reduce the burden on workers. For this reason, the sorting work and the subsequent transport to the storage facility must be carried out quickly. In addition, if a mistake is made during the sorting work, further delays will occur due to the need to correct the mistake, reducing work efficiency. Furthermore, if the amount of time spent working in a relatively high-temperature environment increases, there is a risk that the quality of the fresh foods will deteriorate.

The inventors of the present application have conducted extensive research to resolve the problems described above. As a result, they have discovered that the problems described above can be resolved by incorporating into the loading system a unit that can rotate 90 degrees forward or backward as needed to separate the crates one by one, starting from the top crate, and a unit that can gently arrange products in an empty crate. Based on this, they have created the present invention.

In addition, when filing the application for this invention, the applicant and the inventor of this application searched past patent documents, etc., and found the following documents in the technical field to which this invention pertains, but were unable to find any patent documents that detailed the technical ideas, etc., related to this invention.

JP 2007-137479 A Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 4-201925 Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-16243 Special Publication No. 5-63362 Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 50-24444

The present invention aims to provide a high-speed autoloading system and a high-speed autoloading method using said system, which can automate and speed up tasks such as arranging fresh foods such as meat in crates at fresh food processing centers, etc., by incorporating into the loading system a unit with a function to rotate each crate, starting from the top shelf, 90 degrees forward or backward as necessary to separate the shelves, and a unit with a function to gently arrange products in empty crates.

As a means for achieving this, the high-speed autoloading system of the present invention has a disassembly unit, a product placement unit, and a stacking unit. The disassembly unit is a unit with a function of disassembling a plurality of empty crates supplied in a stacked state, one crate at a time, starting from the topmost crate, and has a lift device, an empty crate carrying device, and a gripping type crate transport device. The product placement unit is a unit with a function of gently arranging products in an empty crate, and has a gripping type crate transport device, a sliding table, and a pinholder-shaped lifting support table. The stacking unit is a unit with a function of stacking a predetermined number of crates containing products, and has a gripping type crate transport device and a product-containing crate carrying device. The lift device has a lift table and a lifting mechanism for moving the lift table up and down. The empty crate carrying device is configured to supply a plurality of empty crates onto the lift table while they are still stacked. The gripping type crate transport device The system has a gripping mechanism capable of gripping the crate with a gripping part and a horizontal movement mechanism for moving the gripping mechanism horizontally, the sliding table has a function of moving horizontally above the crate, and the products to be placed in the crate are arranged on its upper surface, and the sliding table is configured to move horizontally above the crate so that the products arranged on the upper surface fall onto the multiple support pins of the lifting support table, the pinholder-shaped lifting support table has a lifting mechanism and has multiple support pins on its upper surface, and the multiple support pins are arranged to pass through through holes provided on the bottom surface of the crate from the bottom side of the crate, and the lifting mechanism allows the upper ends of the multiple support pins to move up and down within any range between a position above the crate and a position below the crate, and the product-loaded crate discharge device is configured to discharge stacked product-loaded crates to the outside of the system.

In this case, the high-speed autoloading system according to the present invention is also characterized in that the gripping type crate transport device is equipped with a horizontal rotation mechanism that rotates the gripping mechanism horizontally.

In this case, the high-speed autoloading system according to the present invention is also characterized in that the product-containing crate discharge device is also equipped with the lift device.

Furthermore, the de-stack unit applied to a part of the high-speed autoloading system according to the present invention has the function of de-stacking multiple empty crates supplied in a stacked state, one crate at a time, starting from the topmost crate, and has an empty crate loading device, a lift device, and a gripping type crate transport device, the lift device having a lift table and a lifting mechanism for moving the lift table up and down, the empty crate loading device being configured to supply multiple empty crates in a stacked state onto the lift table, and the gripping type crate transport device having a gripping mechanism with a function of gripping a crate with a gripping portion, and a horizontal movement mechanism for moving the gripping mechanism horizontally.

In addition, the product placement unit applied to a part of the high-speed autoloading system according to the present invention has a function of gently arranging products in an empty crate, and has a gripping type crate transport device, a sliding table, and a pinholder-shaped lifting support table, and the gripping type crate transport device has a gripping mechanism with a gripping part that grips the crate, and a horizontal movement mechanism that moves the gripping mechanism horizontally, and the sliding table has a function of moving horizontally above the crate, and the products to be placed in the crate are arranged on its upper surface, and the sliding table The lifting mechanism is configured so that the products arranged on the top surface of the crate fall onto the multiple support pins of the lifting support table when the lifting mechanism moves horizontally above the crate, and the pinholder-shaped lifting support table has multiple support pins on its top surface, and the multiple support pins are arranged so that they pass through holes provided on the bottom surface of the crate from the bottom side of the crate, and the lifting mechanism allows the upper ends of the multiple support pins to move up and down within any range between a position above the crate and a position below the crate.

The method according to the present invention is further characterized in that a plurality of empty crates supplied in a stacked state are destacked one by one starting from the top crate using the destack unit described above.

The method according to the present invention is a method for gently arranging products in a crate using the above-mentioned product placement unit, and is characterized by comprising the steps of: passing the support pins through holes provided on the bottom surface of the crate and positioning the upper ends of the support pins at a position lower than the height of the lower surface of the sliding table; closing the top surface of the crate with the sliding table; arranging the products on the top surface of the sliding table; sliding the sliding table to open the top surface of the crate again while preventing the products from being pulled by the sliding table 7 and moving, and gently dropping the products onto the support pins; and lowering the support pins and moving them so that their upper ends are lower than the bottom surface of the crate, thereby arranging the products on the bottom surface of the crate.

According to the present invention, by incorporating into the loading system a unit with a function to rotate each crate, starting from the top shelf, 90 degrees forward or backward as necessary to separate the shelves, and a unit with a function to gently arrange products in an empty crate, it is possible to provide a high-speed autoloading system and a high-speed autoloading method using said system that can automate and speed up tasks such as arranging fresh foods such as meat in crates at fresh food processing centers, etc.

1 is a schematic diagram of a high-speed autoloading system 1 according to the present embodiment; Schematic diagram of de-stacking unit P Schematic diagram of de-stacking unit P 1 is a schematic diagram of a high-speed autoloading system 1 according to the present embodiment; A schematic diagram showing the process in which the product placement unit Q gently places products in a crate C. A diagram showing a pinholder-shaped liftable support table 8 and the like. Stacked Crate C

The following describes the high-speed autoloading system according to the present invention and the embodiment for implementing the high-speed autoloading method using said system, with reference to the drawings. Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a high-speed autoloading system 1 according to this embodiment (hereinafter, also simply referred to as "this system 1"). This system 1 basically has a de-tiering unit P, a product stationary unit Q, and a stacking unit R.

First, the de-stack unit P will be described with reference to Figures 2 and 3. The de-stack unit P has the function of de-stacking multiple empty crates C, which are supplied stacked in a nested state, one crate at a time, starting from the top crate, and basically includes an empty crate carry-in device 2, a lift device 3, and a grip-type crate transport device 4.

The empty crate loading device 2 is made up of a known transport device such as a roller conveyor, and is configured to supply multiple empty crates C in a stacked state onto the table 3a of the lift device 3. The lift device 3 is also made up of a known lifting device, and is configured to allow the table 3a to move up and down within any range.

The gripping type crate transport device 4 has a gripping mechanism 4a with a gripping section that has the function of gripping a crate C, and a horizontal movement mechanism 4b that moves the gripping mechanism 4a horizontally, and is configured to grip empty crates C stacked on the table 3a one by one from the top tier, and then transport them horizontally (de-tiering). After gripping the crate C, the gripping mechanism 4a is capable of lifting the crate C slightly, and also has the function of disengaging the upper and lower stacked crates C from each other. In this embodiment, a known technology using rails is applied as the horizontal movement mechanism 4b.

The gripping type crate transport device 4 also has a horizontal rotation mechanism 4C that rotates the gripping mechanism 4a horizontally, so that the crates C can be transported horizontally and rotated at the same time. This allows the crates C to be placed in a stacked state when they are subsequently stacked after being de-tiered, by rotating them 90 degrees forward and backward. The crates C transported one by one by the de-tiering unit P are then placed on a roller conveyor 5 that functions as a crate transport device, and are transported to the product placement unit Q.

In this way, the de-tiering unit P is configured to transport the crate C horizontally while simultaneously rotating it, i.e., to simultaneously transport and rotate the crate C, making it possible to perform de-tiering operations at a much higher speed than before. Conventionally, two different operations were performed separately; for example, the crate C de-tiered from the bottom tier was rotated 90 degrees (rotation operation) by a conveyor with a turning function and then transported (transport operation) to the roller conveyor 5, or the de-tiered crate C was transported (transport operation) to the roller conveyor 5 and then the roller conveyor 5 with a turning function was rotated 90 degrees (rotation operation), resulting in a long overall operation time and making it impossible to speed up the operation.

Next, the product placement unit Q will be described. Figure 4 is also a schematic diagram of the system 1, showing the system 1 from a different angle than Figure 1. The product placement unit Q has the function of gently arranging products in an empty crate C, and basically has a gripping crate transport device 4, a fixed table 6, a sliding table 7, and a pinholder-shaped liftable support table 8.

The gripping type crate transport device 4 is the same device as that in the de-tiering unit P. It therefore has the gripping mechanism 4a, horizontal movement mechanism 4b, and horizontal rotation mechanism 4C, and has the same functions. However, the horizontal rotation mechanism 4C may be provided in either the de-tiering unit P or the product stilling unit Q. This is because if at least one of the units has the horizontal rotation mechanism 4C, it is possible to align the orientation of the crates C so that they are in a stacked state.

The fixed table 6 and the sliding table 7 are made of smooth plates, and the products to be placed in the crate C are arranged on their upper surfaces. As shown in FIG. 6, the pinholder-shaped lifting support table 8 is equipped with a lifting mechanism 9 and has multiple support pins 10 and positioning pins 11 on its upper surface.

As shown in Figures 4 and 6, the multiple support pins 10 are arranged to pass through holes provided in the bottom surface of the crate C from the bottom side of the crate C, and are configured so that the multiple support pins 10 can move up and down within a predetermined range in the vertical direction by the action of the lifting mechanism 9. Note that this predetermined range refers to a range in which, on the upper side, the upper end of the support pin 10 is lower than the lower side of the sliding table 7, and on the lower side, the upper end of the support pin 10 is lower than the lower side of the crate C. Furthermore, on the upper side of this range of vertical movement, it is preferable that the distance between the upper end of the support pin 10 and the lower side of the sliding table 7 is within 15 mm in order to suppress the impact when the product is dropped.

Incidentally, Patent Documents 4 and 5 also appear to disclose technology similar to the support pin 10 of the present invention at first glance, but the specific functions and effects of these technologies are completely different from those of the present invention.

The invention described in Patent Document 4 is intended to prevent products from shifting position when they parabolically fall from a transport conveyor located at a high position into a crate. Furthermore, Patent Document 4 does not describe or suggest anything equivalent to the sliding table 7 of the present invention. Therefore, with the invention described in Patent Document 4, it is not possible to gently line up products inside a crate, as with the present invention, and the impact that may be given to the products when they fall is significant.

In addition, the invention described in Patent Document 5 supports the bottle (product) from below with only one support pin (the present invention is configured to place the support pins closely together to stably support the product). Therefore, when placing the products in the crate, if there is a gap between adjacent products or the inner surface of the crate (if the products are not closely packed inside the crate), the products will slide sideways or fall over, and the products cannot be placed in the crate while maintaining their horizontality as in the present invention (with the present invention, it is not a problem even if the products are not closely packed inside the crate. Even if there is only one product, it can be placed gently in the crate). Furthermore, the invention described in Patent Document 5 only assumes the case where the product is higher than the height of the crate, so after the single support pin is lowered and the product is placed in the crate, it is necessary to lower the crate itself (two lowering operations are required), and it is not configured in such a way that the lowering of the crate itself is unnecessary as in the present invention (only one lowering operation is sufficient in the present invention). The reason why the invention described in Patent Document 5 only assumes that the product will be taller than the crate is because it describes how the position of the through hole in the bottom of the crate will be slightly offset from the center of the product.

For the above reasons, the technology described in Patent Documents 4 and 5 cannot be applied to automate or speed up the task of gently arranging food trays containing fresh food inside an empty crate. In this respect, the inventions described in Patent Documents 4 and 5 are fundamentally different from the present invention.

The positioning pins 11 function as guides by penetrating two or more of the through holes provided at the four corners of the bottom surface of the crate C. Although the crate C is an industry standard product, warping or bending may occur due to frequency of use, usage environment, deterioration, etc. Even in this case, the positioning pins 11 allow the positioning of the crate and the support pins 10 to be determined with high precision, and problems such as the support pins 10 pushing up the bottom of the crate can be avoided. The positioning pins 11 can be moved up and down by a mechanism (not shown) separate from the lifting mechanism 9 so that they can rise and be positioned before the support pins. It is also preferable that the upper ends of the positioning pins 11 are thin enough not to be sharp so that they can function properly as guides.

Furthermore, instead of arranging two positioning pins 11 diagonally, three of the four corners or four at all four corners may be arranged. Note that even if positioning pins 11 are not required, such as in a site where only crates without warping or bending are used, if multiple support pins 10 can penetrate the through holes provided in the bottom surface of the crate C from the bottom surface side of the crate C without any problems, it is possible to omit positioning pins 11.

The following provides a more detailed explanation of the process by which the product settling unit Q gently arranges products inside the empty crate C. Figure 5 is a schematic diagram showing this process, in which 12 indicates the products (packaged food trays) that are arranged inside the crate C.

First, as shown in FIG. 5(A), multiple support pins 10 are inserted through holes in the bottom surface of crate C, and are positioned so that their upper ends are lower than the height of the bottom surface of the sliding table 7. Then, the product 12 is placed on the top surface of the fixed table 6. At this point, the top surface of the crate C is closed by the sliding table 7. Although not shown here, if positioning pins are also provided, when the crate C arrives at a predetermined position in the stationary unit Q, the positioning pins first penetrate the through holes in the four corners of the bottom surface of the crate C to position the crate C, and then the multiple support pins 10 penetrate the bottom surface of the crate C.

From this state, as shown in FIG. 5(B), the products 12 are pushed by the push plate 13 and moved to the upper surface of the sliding table 7, so that a predetermined number of products 12 are arranged side by side on the upper surface of the sliding table 7, as shown in FIG. 5(C).

Then, from this state, as shown in FIG. 5(D), the sliding table 7 is slid (from left to right in the figure) to open the top of the crate C. At this time, the stop plate 14 prevents the product 12 from being pulled by the sliding table 7 and moving. This allows the product 12 to gently fall onto the multiple support pins 10.

The products 12 that have fallen gently onto the support pins 10 are then gently arranged on the bottom surface of the crate C as the support pins 10 descend and the upper ends of the support pins 10 move below the bottom surface of the crate C, as shown in FIG. 5(E). The sliding table 7 is also designed to quickly move back above the crate C after the products 12 have been arranged. In this way, the sliding table 7 basically moves above the crate C, keeping the top surface of the crate C closed, except when the products 12 have fallen gently onto the support pins 10. This is the flow by which the products 12 are gently arranged inside the crate C by the product placement unit Q.

Because the product placement unit Q is configured as described above, even food trays containing fresh foods can be gently arranged inside the crate, and these operations can be automated and accelerated without damaging the products. In order to gently arrange and place the products 12, the multiple support pins 10 must be arranged closely enough to fill the bottom surface of the crate C without any gaps when they penetrate it, as shown in Figure 6.

The above describes the operation in which products are stacked in only one layer, but depending on the height of the products and the effective height of the crate, it is possible to gently stack the products in the second layer in the crate by appropriately moving the lifting mechanism 9 and lowering the support pins 10 by the height of the products after the first layer is stacked and before the second layer is stacked. In addition, three or more layers can also be stacked by lowering the support pins 10 in the same way. However, Patent Document 5 does not mention or suggest stacking products in two or more layers. The invention described in Patent Document 5 only envisions the processing of products that are longer in height than they are wide, such as bottles, and in this respect, too, it is fundamentally different from the present invention.

In the above embodiment, the means for placing the product 12 on the upper surface of the fixed table 6 may be any known transport means. Also, in the above embodiment, the push plate 13 is used as the means for moving the product 12 from the upper surface of the fixed table 6 to the upper surface of the sliding table 7, but the means for this movement may also be any known transport means.

In the above embodiment, the product stilling unit Q is described as using two tables, a fixed table 6 and a sliding table 7, but the fixed table 6 can be replaced with a product storage type transport conveyor. Also, if the sliding table 7 is configured to move to the position of the fixed table 6, it is possible to configure the product stilling unit Q without using the fixed table 6.

Finally, the stacking unit R will be explained again with reference to Figure 4. The stacking unit R is a unit that has the function of stacking a predetermined number of crates containing products, and basically has a gripping type crate transport device 4 and a product-containing crate discharge device 15.

This gripping type crate transport device 4 is the same device as that in the de-stack unit P and the product stationary unit Q. Therefore, it has the gripping mechanism 4a, horizontal movement mechanism 4b, and horizontal rotation mechanism 4C, and has the same functions. However, for the reasons mentioned above, the horizontal rotation mechanism 4C may be omitted from the stacked unit R, as it only needs to be provided in one of the units. In addition, the gripping type crate transport device 4 may be shared with the product stationary unit Q, and one gripping type crate transport device 4 may be provided for both the stacking unit R and the product stationary unit Q.

The product-containing crate discharge device 15 is configured to discharge stacked product-containing crates C to the outside of the system using a known loading device. Note that the stacking unit R may be omitted if stacking of crates containing products is not required due to the operation or function of downstream equipment.

According to the present invention, by incorporating into the loading system a unit with a function to rotate each crate, starting from the top shelf, 90 degrees forward or backward as necessary to separate the shelves, and a unit with a function to gently arrange products in an empty crate, it is possible to provide a high-speed autoloading system and a high-speed autoloading method using said system that can automate and speed up tasks such as arranging fresh foods such as meat in crates at fresh food processing centers, etc.

Claims (4)

A high-speed autoloading system having a de-stacking unit, a product placement unit, and a stacking unit,
The stacking unit is a unit having a function of stacking a plurality of empty crates supplied one by one from the top crate, and includes a lift device and
The system includes an empty crate carrying device and a gripping type crate transport device,
The product placement unit is a unit having a function of gently arranging products in an empty crate, and includes a gripping type crate transport device, a sliding table, and a pinholder-shaped lifting support table;
The stacking unit is a unit having a function of stacking a predetermined number of crates containing products, and includes a gripping type crate transport device and a product-containing crate carrying-out device;
The lift device includes a lift table and a lifting mechanism for moving the lift table up and down.
The empty crate loading device is configured to supply a plurality of empty crates in a stacked state onto the lift table,
The gripping type crate transport device includes a gripping mechanism having a function of gripping a crate with a gripping part, a horizontal movement mechanism for moving the gripping mechanism in a horizontal direction , and a horizontal rotation mechanism for transporting the crate in the horizontal direction and simultaneously rotating the crate horizontally ,
The pinholder-shaped lifting support table is provided with a lifting mechanism and has a plurality of support pins on its upper surface.
The support pins are inserted into through holes provided in the bottom surface of the crate.
The lift mechanism is arranged so that the front
The upper end of the support pin is between a position above the crate and a position below the crate.
It is configured to be able to move up and down within any range ,
The sliding table has a function of moving horizontally on the upper side of the crate,
The products to be placed in the crate are arranged on the top surface, and the slide
A door-type table is placed on top of the crate by moving horizontally above it.
the product is configured to fall onto the plurality of support pins of the liftable support table ;
A high-speed auto-loading system, characterized in that the product-loaded crate discharge device is configured to discharge stacked product-loaded crates to the outside of the system. 2. The high-speed autoloading system according to claim 1, wherein said product-containing crate discharge device also includes said lift device. A product placement unit that is applied as part of a high-speed autoloading system and has a function of gently placing products in an empty crate,
The crate transport device has a gripping type crate transport device, a sliding table, and a pinholder-shaped lifting support table.
The gripping type crate transport device includes a gripping mechanism having a function of gripping a crate with a gripping part, a horizontal movement mechanism for moving the gripping mechanism in a horizontal direction , and a horizontal rotation mechanism for transporting the crate in the horizontal direction and simultaneously rotating the crate horizontally ,
The pinholder-shaped lifting support table is provided with a lifting mechanism and has a plurality of support pins on its upper surface.
The support pins are inserted into through holes provided in the bottom surface of the crate.
The lift mechanism is arranged so that the front
The upper end of the support pin is between a position above the crate and a position below the crate.
It is configured to be able to move up and down within any range ,
The sliding table has a function of moving horizontally on the upper side of the crate,
The products to be placed in the crate are arranged on the top surface, and the slide
A door-type table is placed on top of the crate by moving horizontally above it.
The product settling unit is configured so that the product falls onto the multiple support pins of the liftable support table . 4. A method for gently arranging products in a crate using the product stabilizing unit of claim 3 , comprising:
A step of inserting the plurality of support pins through through holes provided on the bottom surface of the crate so that the upper ends of the support pins are positioned at a level lower than the height of the lower surface of the sliding table;
closing the top surface of the crate by the sliding table;
placing products on an upper surface of the sliding table;
a step of sliding the sliding table 7 to reopen the top of the crate while preventing the product from being pulled by the sliding table 7 and gently dropping the product onto the plurality of support pins;
and a step of lowering the plurality of support pins and moving them so that their upper ends are below the bottom surface of the crate, thereby arranging the products on the bottom surface of the crate.

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