Supports: cabinet structure – With movable components – Horizontally movable
Patent
1998-10-30
2000-05-09
Cuomo, Peter M.
Supports: cabinet structure
With movable components
Horizontally movable
31224911, 3123198, 3123301, 211 592, A47B 8800
Patent
active
060593903
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a shelf assembly as described in the preamble for claim 1, destined for storing and distributing various sorts of goods, and particularly to a shelf assembly, which comprises a so-called fifo (first in-first out) -arrangement.
The fifo-arrangement generally refers to an arrangement in which an object that is placed on the shelf, in a drawer, in a rack or similar first, is also the first one to be taken out, i.e. the goods placed on the shelf are always used in the order in which they were placed there, in order to assure an even circulation of the goods and also that no object will remain on the shelf longer than the others but will leave there in a predisposed order. With this arrangement it is also possible to minimize the risk of non-marketability e.g. in case of a change in product variation, i.e. the old product is always used up before a first new product can be taken out.
Traditional fifo-shelves or other storage units are generally structured so as to be charged from one side and discharged from the other side. Because of this the fifo-shelves are sometimes called flow-through shelves. There are a large number of different solutions for flow-through shelves, but the basic solution is, however, always the same and it demands free access to both sides of the shelf. The progress of the goods on the shelf from the charging side to the discharging side is usually organized so as to take place by means of gravity, for instance so that a shelf board or a shelf container declines towards the discharging direction.
The weakness of the presented solutions has been, however, that they have demanded space on both sides of the shelf unit, as the preceding example shows. This has lead to inefficient space utilization e.g. in shops, warehouses and industrial establishments. It has been practically impossible to place a flow-through shelf unit e.g. in a corner of a room. In most private homes and corresponding spaces meant for habitation there is usually not enough space for flow-through shelves, which means that this per se practical fifo-arrangement has been impossible to use in homes.
The object of the present invention is to abolish the disadvantages of known techniques and to create a novel solution for a so-called fifo-shelf arrangement. According to the objects of this invention, through the inventive solution it will be possible to create fifo-shelves, which are more efficient in space utilization than the known solutions, which permit a more variable placing of the shelf-unit and which are more adaptable than the previous solutions to different storage and distributional needs of goods, but which arrangement is inexpensive and simple in structure and in realization.
A further object of the present invention is to create a fifo-shelf unit, which demands accessibility only to one side.
A further object of the present invention is to create a shelf unit, that gives the desired shelter to the goods placed on it.
A supplementary object of the invention is a movable shelf unit.
Another supplementary object of the invention is to create a shelf unit, in which the shelf space utilization can be adjusted according to needs.
Another supplementary object of the present invention is a shelf unit, in which the sloping angle of individual shelves can be adjusted as needed.
Another supplementary object of the invention is a shelf unit supplied with suitable driving devices in order to assure a semi-automatic or fully automatic functioning.
Another object of the invention is further to create a shelf unit that comprises control devices for controlling the different functions of the shelf and/or to organize a storage control.
The invention is based on the fundamental idea, that by supplying the shelves of the shelf unit with means for moving individual fifo-shelves on the shelf unit in order to draw a single shelf out of the shelf unit, a structure will be achieved that realizes the object of this invention.
More precisely, the main characteristic of the inventive shelf assembly is what is
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OPTIMAX Data Sheet RT X76-34030, 1992.
Cuomo Peter M.
Tran Hanh V.
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