Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor system having auxiliary section for storing items...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-10
2001-05-29
Bidwell, James R. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor system having auxiliary section for storing items...
C198S594000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06237741
ABSTRACT:
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a process for controlling the operation of machines in accordance with the preamble of claim
1
hereinbelow, as well as the respective machine.
In developing the invention particular attention was paid to its possible application to the packaging of such food products as snacks, bars of chocolate and similar products.
STATEMENT OF THE ART
A very common practice in this application sector is the use of so-called multiple packages (sometimes referred to more briefly as “multi-packs”); these are packages in which individual articles or groups of such articles are first inserted in an appropriate individual package and then, in a subsequent phase, these individual packages are grouped into multiple packages intended to constitute—for example—units suitable for sale to families (family packs).
The packaging lines used for this purpose operate at rather high speeds and call for an ever greater degree of automation, great versatility in forming the multiple packages and the possibility of having the lines supervised by people who have not undergone any specific training; this also as regards the so-called “format change” operations.
In general (and therefore also quite independently of this specific application group) the invention sets out to solve a problem that presents itself with a certain frequency in all situations in which, starting from a substantially continuous flow of individual articles on the intake side (consisting of, for example, the individual packages to be combined into a multipack), it is desired to generate an output flow of articles that are ordered into groups or sets (in the case of multipacks, in fact, these groups would be constituted by groups of individual packages intended to be inserted into one such multipack).
In particular, this problem is bound up with the fact that the flow of articles on the intake side, which in an ideal case would be perfectly continuous, can in actual practice be associated with occasional and randomly distributed discontinuities that derive, for example, from the fact that some upstream processing station has discarded or expelled individual articles on account of having found them to badly packed, incorrectly positioned, etc. A flow of this kind can therefore be defined as “substantially” continuous.
In general principle, at least, the problem just outlined could be solved by stopping the machine that receives such an input flow for a period of time sufficiently long to cause the discontinuity to be absorbed, which in actual practice means that the receiving machine has to be stopped for the exact period of time in which it would have received the missing article. In actual fact, however, this solution is not practicable for a whole series of reasons, though first and foremost on account of the high operating speeds of the machines under consideration, which make it practically impossible to obtain the almost instantaneous stoppage and restarting that would be needed to implement this type of solution.
The present invention therefore sets out to provide a solution of this problem wholly compatible with the high operating speed of the machines under consideration and also such as to preserve unaltered, always within the ambit of a simple and reliable machine, the characteristic of considerable versatility as regards the composition of the groups of articles on the output side and the realization of format changes in a fully automatic manner.
According to the present invention, this scope can be attained thanks to a process having the characteristics set out specifically in the claims hereinbelow. The invention also includes the machine with which this scope can be attained.
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patent: 5960927 (1999-10-01), Bahr
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Search Report, dated Jul. 3, 1998 (2 pages).
Bidwell James R.
Cavanna S.p.A.
TraskBritt
LandOfFree
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