Metal working – Means to assemble or disassemble
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-22
2004-10-19
Hong, John C. (Department: 3726)
Metal working
Means to assemble or disassemble
C029S707000, C029S710000, C029S711000, C029S791000, C029S823000, C029S824000, C198S395000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06804880
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to assembly apparatuses for use in an assembly process for magnetic tape cartridges or the like that may flexibly conform to change in production volume and specifications, in which manual operations and operations using an assembly robot are combined. The present invention relates particularly to an assembly apparatus that may easily conform to increase in production volume and change in specifications of parts, and exhibits high production efficiency.
Generally, a product manufactured and sold is subject to change in production volume required in accordance with sales volume of the product. Moreover, change in specifications frequently taking place at the outset of launching a new product would entail changes in shape or the like of parts of the product at times. In this respect, a manual assembly operation is advantageous in adjustability for production volume by means of manpower relocation, and in high conformability to change in specifications. However, on the other hand, such a manual assembly operation is disadvantageously subject to human errors such as an inadvertent skip of some part to be mounted, which would produce deterioration in quality of the product. In contrast, a fully automated assembly apparatus using an assembly robot together with a part-supplying device or a part-supplying tray may advantageously serve to increase production volume, but entails enormous cost of equipment, and requires arrangement of a particular part-supplying device and part-supplying tray dedicated to each part.
Accordingly, once such a particular part-supplying device and part-supplying tray dedicated to each part are arranged in the assembly apparatus, when the part-supplying device and part-supplying tray need be replaced upon change in specifications of parts derived from new product release or the like, several months should be required to design and produce a new part-supplying device and part-supplying tray that conforms to the specifications. Moreover, parts of various specifications may be required mounting in the same location of the same type of products in response to a request from consumers or customers. In such a case, the part-supplying device and the like dedicated to each part, once equipped, would be very difficult to change in conformity to the requirements.
The inventor of the present invention has created an assembly apparatus in which an accurate and fast assembly operation using an assembly robot is combined with a manual operation having high conformability to change in specifications. This assembly apparatus includes a part-supplying station that supplies parts to a predetermined conveyor pallet through a manual operation, and a part-assembling station that assembles the parts provided in the conveyor pallet using an assembly robot. In this assembly apparatus, the parts are placed in the conveyor pallet and conveyed from the part-supplying station to the part-assembling station. The thus-constructed assembly apparatus may easily accommodate change in specifications of the parts only by a partial change in the conveyor pallet, and may prevent defective assembly due to human errors in that the assembly robot takes the parts out of the conveyor pallet and performs an assembly operation.
However, in the assembly apparatus in which a manual part-supplying operation and an assembly operation performed by the assembly robot are combined, the conveyor pallets are conveyed to the assembly robot in the following manner. First, a conveyor pallet in which parts are put is conveyed to a work area where the assembly robot performs an assembly operation. At this stage, the conveyor pallet need accurately stop at the work area so that the assembly robot may not fail to pick up the parts. For that reason, the conveyor pallet is brought into contact with a stopper pin that projects from below a conveyor means provided ahead of the conveyor pallet, for the purpose of provisional positioning of the conveyor pallet. Thereafter, two pins rise from directly below the conveyor pallet, and get fitted into predetermined holes formed on a bottom of the conveyor pallet, so that the conveyor pallet may be accurately positioned.
When the assembly robot finishes assembling parts taken out of the conveyor pallet as necessary, the stopper pin and two pins lower so as to allow the conveyor pallet to move, and the conveyor pallet is conveyed out from the work area. After the conveyor pallet is conveyed out in its entirety from the work area, the above stopper pin rises again to stop a subsequently conveyed conveyor pallet.
In a conventional arrangement as described above, a subsequent conveyor pallet is not conveyed in until a previous conveyor pallet including finished parts is conveyed out in its entirety from the work area. This would disadvantageously generate some idle time for the assembly robot to have no parts to be assembled, and lower a net serviceability ratio of the assembly robot. Such disadvantage would be made more conspicuous, as an operation speed (or line tact) becomes faster. For example, the idle time for three seconds does not matter when the operation speed is 20 seconds/unit; however, if the operation speed were made faster to seven seconds or so with increased number of the assembly robots, the idle time for three seconds would largely affect the production efficiency.
Moreover, the manual operation of supplying parts be conveyed to the assembly robot as in the above-discussed assembly apparatus would possibly entail human errors such as misorientaton of the parts. Therefore, uncorrected mounting of the misoriented parts by the assembly robot would produce a defective product, or difficulty in mounting the misoriented parts would suspend the operation of the assembly apparatus, or like troubles would be encountered. In view of these circumstances, an assembly apparatus that may securely perform an assembly operation even if the parts conveyed to the assembly robot is misoriented has been in demand.
Further, some products among those assembled using the above assembly apparatus would be required to change some components in accordance with their purposes or the like. For example, the magnetic tape cartridge includes a dedicated write-protect type, a data recordable type, a cleaning-use type, or the like, each having a safety lug in varying shapes attached thereto. In order to assemble the magnetic tape cartridges of various types as described above in one and the same assembly apparatus, different safety lugs are manually placed on the conveyor pallet according to the specifications of the target magnetic tape cartridge to be assembled. However, such a manual part-supplying operation might possibly cause a wrong part to be placed on the conveyor pallet due to human errors. Otherwise, even if the part placed were not a wrong part, the part would likely be placed in a position deviated from a predetermined position on the conveyor pallet. Further, even if the manual operation were appropriately performed, the number of the supplied parts might occasionally be different from a predetermined number. In these situations, the conventional assembly apparatus would disadvantageously produce an erroneously assembled product.
Further, in the assembly apparatus as described above in which a manual operation and an operation using an assembly robot are combined, increase in production volume may be achieved by increasing the manpower and the number of robots, and operations may be divided so that operation steps one unit of the assembly robot performs may be reduced. For example, if an arrangement in which one unit of the assembly robot performs nine assembly operations is changed into another arrangement in which three units of the assembly robots perform the same assembly operations, then these nine operations are divided so that each assembly robot may perform three assembly operations. In this arrangement, one assembly robot would perform the operations for a shorter time period, and thus the operation speed could be made fas
Fuji Photo Film Co. , Ltd.
Hong John C.
Omgba Essama
Sughrue & Mion, PLLC
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