JPH072524B2 - Automatic warehouse - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a three-dimensional automated warehouse, and more specifically to an article management system for loading and unloading and rearranging articles by a stacker crane for an automated warehouse. Is.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, an operation schedule in a three-dimensional and high-rise automated warehouse is classified into three types: a warehousing schedule, a warehousing schedule, and a rearrangement schedule. In the warehousing schedule, a free location system is used, and empty shelves are searched and warehousing is performed at the designated location. Further, in the delivery schedule, as a general rule, the first-in first-out delivery is adopted, and the delivery shelves are allocated in order from the earliest entry time. Further, in the rearrangement schedule, in order to improve the operation efficiency of the stacker crane (hereinafter abbreviated as a crane), when the 1-day storage schedule is usually decided, the articles to be delivered should be placed in the vicinity of the delivery exit in consideration of the delivery order. I'm taking it to the shelves.
Since this rearrangement has a lower priority than the warehousing and the warehousing, the rearrangement is mainly carried out by utilizing the free time such as lunch break or night.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) That is, in an automated warehouse adopting such a free location system, one type of article is not always on the same shelf. For this reason, as a matter of course, there are cases where the goods requested to leave are gathered on a very high shelf that is out of the reach of people. Such systems assume that the crane and its controls will never fail.

However, the crane and the like may actually break down. In the event of such a failure, if the requested goods are on a high shelf that is out of reach of people, the requested goods cannot be taken out. If the requested goods cannot be delivered, the goods do not reach the subsequent process, which causes troubles such as operation stop.

The present invention has been made in view of this point, and the purpose thereof is to provide even in the case of an accident such as a crane failure,
It is to provide an automated warehouse that can issue all types of registered goods.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the automated warehouse of the present invention distinguishes between an emergency exit lower shelf that can be manually ejected, and an upper shelf and an intermediate shelf that are located above this. Means for retrieving the stock status of types of articles; means for retrieving the required types of articles from the upper and middle shelves, if there is a desired type of article on the upper and middle shelves, And a means for replenishing the lower shelf with articles of the same type when the articles of a certain type are out of stock on the shelf.

The automatic warehouse of the present invention has a loading and unloading crane, and a plurality of types of lot-produced articles (registered articles) are carried in.

As for the goods shelves in the automated warehouse, the inventory statuses of all types of registered goods are searched for the lower shelf for emergency delivery and the upper and middle shelves, respectively.

(Operation) In the automated warehouse of the present invention, when a desired type of inventory item is on the upper and middle shelves, it is delivered from the upper and middle shelves. In this case, the article that entered the earliest is preferentially issued. If the desired type of inventory is not in the upper or middle shelves but only in the emergency shelves, the lower shelves are shipped. Then, when a certain type of inventory item on the lower shelf is exhausted, it is quickly replenished. There are two ways of replenishment: replenishment at the time of storage and relocation by relocating from the upper and middle shelves.

Therefore, according to the present invention, at least one of all registered articles is always placed on the emergency exit lower shelf that can be reached by manpower. Therefore, even in an emergency when the crane is out of order, it is possible to manually leave the required articles of any type.

As a result, it is possible to avoid the worst situation in which the goods cannot be delivered in the emergency, so that there is no possibility of running out of stock in the subsequent process. In the present invention, the warehousing work in an emergency depends on human labor, but if the required type of goods can be evacuated, the line stop due to the lack of goods in the subsequent process can be avoided for a certain period of time. In other words, from the viewpoint of the operation rate of the subsequent process, there is actually no difference from when the crane is normal.

(Embodiment) An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First
The figure is a diagram related to internal processing for creating the operation schedule of a crane in an automated warehouse. In the figure, 1 is a crane schedule creation unit that integrally creates an operation schedule of cranes, 2 is a crane operation control unit that controls the actual operation of cranes, and 3 is an information from shelf data B to search for empty shelves. Based on g, the empty shelf search unit 4 which sends the information h to the crane schedule creation unit 1 sends information k to the crane schedule creation unit 1 based on the information j from the shelf data B in order to allocate the outgoing shelf. Outgoing shelf allocation section 5 checks the operating status of the crane one by one to grasp the current status of loading and unloading, and updates the inventory data A, shelf data B, loading request data C, and shipping request data D. This is a data update processing unit. E is data for storing whether or not there is a load on the lowermost shelf.

When performing internal processing, with the data A, B, C, D, E,
Information a to r are configured to flow between the functional units 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 as shown in the figure.

The individual schedule creation will be described below. First, the creation of the operation schedule of the crane according to this embodiment will be described. Now, assume that the crane is empty. In this empty state, the crane is in a state of waiting for a command to finish one operation schedule and receive the next operation schedule. First, when the crane operation control unit 2 detects an empty state, the crane operation control unit 2
Sends the next schedule creation request a to the crane schedule creation unit 1. Then, the crane schedule creation unit 1 which has received the schedule creation request a confirms the presence or absence of the warehousing request data C and the warehousing request data D at that time, and the respective information c and d for processing it.
Create a warehousing schedule and a shipping schedule. At this time, when the warehousing request and the warehousing request overlap, a warehousing schedule and a warehousing schedule are created alternately, except in special cases such as an emergency.

Next, a process of creating a schedule for a storage request will be described. FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the creation of the warehousing schedule. Now, when there is a storage request for a certain article, first, it is searched whether or not there is a cargo of the same type as that article already stored in the lowest shelf (step 11). This search method may be performed by searching the place (area) corresponding to the requested article in the lowest shelf inventory presence / absence data (flag) E added to the inventory data A. The information e thus obtained is transmitted to the crane schedule creation unit 1.

If there is already a load on the lowermost shelf by this search (step 13), an empty shelf search command f for the shelves other than the lowermost shelf is transmitted from the crane schedule creation unit 1 to the empty shelf search unit 3. Then, the empty shelf search unit 3 performs a search based on the shelf information g from the shelf data B, and transmits the resulting shelf address (information) h to the crane schedule creation unit 1 (step 14).

If there is no cargo on the other bottom shelf (step 12),
An empty shelf search command f for the lowest shelf is transmitted from the crane schedule creation unit 1 to the empty shelf search unit 3 and, as described above,
The search result by the empty shelf search unit 3 is transmitted to the crane schedule creation unit 1 (step 14). By the above information processing, the receiving shelf is determined, and the process of creating a schedule for the receiving request is completed.

Next, the process of creating a schedule for a delivery request will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the delivery schedule creation. Now, when there is a delivery request for a certain article, it is first confirmed based on the information e from the inventory data A whether or not the required article is in stock.

By this search, if the requested article is not in stock, it cannot be delivered (out of stock).

On the other hand, if there is stock, create a shipping schedule immediately by the following procedure. First, a command i for retrieving the shelf with the earliest entry time of the requested article is transmitted from the crane schedule creation unit 1 to the delivery shelf assignment unit 4. Then, the delivery shelf assigning section 4 performs a search based on the shelf information j from the shelf data B, and the shelves are allocated according to the result ((step 21)).

If the shelf assigned here is other than the bottom shelf,
The assigned shelves are used as output shelves (Step 2)
3).

On the other hand, if the assigned shelf is at the bottom, it is checked whether or not the stock is on a shelf other than the bottom for the same lot (same type) as the requested article (step 2).
2). As a result, when the stocked products of the same lot are on the shelves other than the bottom shelf, the stocked products of the same lot on the shelves other than the bottom one having the earliest receipt time are assigned as the delivery shelves (step 24). On the other hand, if there is no stock item in the same lot, the lowest shelf is assigned as the delivery shelf (step 25). The delivery shelf is determined by the above information processing, and the shelf information k of the determined shelf address is transmitted from the delivery shelf allocation unit 4 to the crane schedule creation unit 1. This completes the process of creating a schedule for the delivery request.

When the warehousing schedule or the warehousing schedule is determined as described above, the crane schedule creation unit 1 issues a command b for executing the contents to the crane operation control unit 2
Send to. Then, the crane operation control unit 2 controls the actual operation of the crane according to the command b, and performs the warehousing work or the warehousing work. When all the series of work based on the crane schedule is completed, the crane operation control unit 2
Sends the schedule completion information l to the data update processing unit 5. In response to this, the data update processing unit 5 updates each data. Specifically, this update includes registration and deletion of each of inventory data A, shelf data B, warehousing request data C, and warehousing request data D.

In this case, when the lowermost shelf portion of the shelf data B is updated, at the same time, the lowermost shelf presence / absence data E
Q is updated. When the data update is completed in this way, the data update processing unit 5 sends the update completion information r to the crane operation control unit 2, and thereby all the information processing is completed.

Next, the schedule creation of the relocation will be described. Fourth
The figure is a flow chart showing the rearrangement schedule creation. The rearrangement schedule is created when the crane schedule creation unit 1 receives the schedule creation request a from the crane operation control unit 2 and if there is no warehousing request or unloading request, it is determined as idle time.
The rearrangement described here is different from the conventional rearrangement in which the goods are moved to the shelves near the exit in consideration of the shipping order. That is, the rearrangement of the present invention is carried out to ensure that all kinds of articles are always at least one on the lowest shelf.

In creating the rearrangement schedule, first, it is searched whether or not there is an empty shelf at the bottom (step 31). This search method is carried out according to the same procedure as at the time of storage. If there is an empty shelf in the lowermost shelf by this search (step 32), the presence / absence e of the lowermost shelf is individually checked immediately for each kind of registered article. If there is no empty shelf at the bottom (step 33), the process ends.

Only when there is no cargo on the bottom shelf as a result of the check, among the types of goods without a cargo, the goods having the latest storage time are rearranged from a shelf other than the bottom shelf to a bottom empty shelf (step 34).
And 35). Even when the rearrangement is performed, the data update processing unit 5 updates the data in the same manner as at the time of loading and unloading. With the above processing, one relocation schedule is completed. By performing such processing for all types of registered articles, the rearrangement of all the articles between the shelves is completed.

In the present embodiment, all kinds of articles are always present in the lowermost shelf by rearranging the articles between the shelves, so that the desired articles can be manually delivered even if the crane fails. Therefore, the probability that a stockout will occur in the subsequent process is reduced. Normally, the goods that are loaded and unloaded by a crane are transported in units of boxes called pallets.
You can actually earn time for at least one pallet. Therefore, if the crane repair work is completed in the meantime, troubles such as a line stop in a post process can be avoided. Although the lowermost shelf is assigned as the emergency shipping lower shelf in the embodiment, the shelf may be the second or third shelf from the lowest shelf as long as it is a shelf having a height that can be manually delivered.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, in the past, when an accident such as a crane failure occurred, desired articles could not be delivered, but the automatic warehouse of the present invention is an emergency delivery container that can be carried out manually. Since it has a function of arranging at least one type of all registered items on the shelf, it is possible to urgently leave the desired item even if the crane malfunctions and prevent operation stoppage in the subsequent process. effective.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an embodiment according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart relating to a warehousing schedule, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a flow chart relating to the delivery schedule, and FIG. 1 …… Crane schedule creation unit 2 …… Crane operation control unit 3 …… Empty shelf search unit 4 …… Outgoing shelf allocation unit 5 …… Data update processing unit

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (56) Reference JP-A-59-97905 (JP, A) JP-A-61-203005 (JP, A) JP-A-60-87104 (JP, A) JP-B-59- 28481 (JP, B2)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A lower shelf for emergency delivery that can be manually delivered,
Above that, it is a means to search the inventory status of all types of goods by distinguishing it from the middle shelf and the search result shows that if the requested kind of goods is in the upper and middle shelves, it will take precedence over the lower shelf. And a means for retrieving from the upper and middle shelves and a means for replenishing the lower shelf with articles of the same type as the lower shelf when a certain type of article is out of stock. Automatic warehouse.