Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Tokyo Shibaura Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Kazuhito Haruki

Takeshi Kohno

Akinori Hongu

Hideki Kobayashi

Masuo Tamada

Yasuo Nagase

Seizo Doi

Toshiyuki Miyano

Seietsu Nara

Hideki Shimada

Kozo Matsumoto

Keiichi Handa

Masanori Iwamoto

Tetsuo Horii

Nobusato Maruyama

Yoshinori Kobayashi

Kazuhiko Nishimura

Kumiko Amemiya

Kimio Katsuragawa

Miho Takahashi

Disclosed is a computer-aided product designing assistant apparatus and method for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental counscious product. The apparatus comprises: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.

Computer-aided designing assistant apparatus and method of assisting designing of environmentally conscious product

Supplier-specific data of material items are extracted from data of various material items used for the manufacture of a product. Tabular data having a structure that allows various pieces of environment consideration condition information about the extracted data to be input is created by using general-purpose spreadsheet software. The tabular data is laid out to locate an item whose contents are likely to change at an end of a table so as to minimize a change in data structure in the event of a change in contents of environment consideration condition items. The tabular data is provided to the supplier. Environment consideration condition information about each material item is acquired by using the tabular data containing the environment consideration condition information added to the tabular data on the supplier side.

Method of acquiring environment consideration condition information

Disclosed is a computer-aided product designing assistant apparatus and method for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental conscious product. The apparatus includes: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level a, of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.

A product environmental load evaluation method comprises computing fuel input coefficients, inverse matrix coefficients and input coefficient matrix of imported goods referring to an Input-Output table regarding domestic goods, generating emission coefficients referring to an existing data stochastic document, estimating a direct emission matrix based on fuel input coefficients and emission coefficients, computing environmental load of the domestic goods based on the inverse matrix coefficients and direct emission matrix, computing overseas environmental load emission coefficients of the imported goods based on overseas parameter every addition of an imported good, computing imported good environmental load based on the input coefficient matrix of the imported goods and the overseas environmental load emission coefficients, and computing product environmental load by adding the domestic good environmental load to be provided fixedly and the imported good environmental load updated every addition of an imported good.

Product environmental load evaluation method

A fault repair method including the steps of providing second memory cells as spare lines for repairing faulty elements of first memory cells for storing data therein, setting virtual third memory cells with respect to a repair target including said first memory cells and the second memory cells, and repairing the faulty elements of the first memory cells and the second memory cells by using the virtual third cells.

Method and device for repairing arrays with redundancy

An apparatus for inputting classification information of delivery matter comprises a display section into which postal matter is conveyed and which shows an address of each postal matter to the operator and a keyboard to input a zip code corresponding to the address displayed, and which apparatus converts the zip code inputted into a bar code and print this bar code on the postal matter. This apparatus further comprises a first storage section to store the zip codes corresponding to a plurality of states which are derived by dividing the whole region where the postal matter is delivered, a second storage section to store the zip codes corresponding to a plurality of cities that are obtained by dividing the state, a third storage section to store the zip codes corresponding to a plurality of towns that are obtained by dividing the city, and a CRT display section to sequentially display the zip codes stored in the first, second and third storage sections.

Apparatus for inputting classification information of delivery matter

An apparatus for processing paper sheets comprises a batch feeder for carrying the withdrawn paper sheets, a takeout device for picking up the paper sheets from the batch feeder, one by one, an inspection section for inspecting the paper sheets picked up by the takeout device, whereby the paper sheets are classified into two groups, an unmachinable first group and a machinable second group, a first collecting device for collecting the first group of paper sheets, and a judgment unit for classifying the second group of paper sheets into two subgroups, a legitimate third group and a counterfeit fourth group. The first collecting device includes a second collecting device for collecting the third group of paper sheets, and third collecting device for collecting the fourth group of paper sheets.

Paper sheet processing apparatus

A mail sorting system is provided which includes a plurality of mail sorters and coding devices. These mail sorters and coding devices are selectively coupled together by a distributor so that any coding device can be coupled to any mail sorter. When a mail sorter cannot identify the zip code of a particular piece of mail, the unrecognized address image is transferred to one of the coding devices so that the correct address can be input by an operator. An assigning controller is connected to the distributor for determining which coding device should receive the unrecognized address image in accordance with the current mail processing capability of the mail sorters and coding devices in order to maximize the mail handling capability of the mail sorting system.

Mail sorting system with coding devices

A letter sorting machine (LSM) system of the invention has a plurality of LSMs, each having a feeder, a reader, horizontal convey paths, bins with a push-out mechanism, an elevator mechanism, a separating mechanism for separating the postal matter from the trays, a destination label printer, and a bundling machine. These LSMs are connected to a centralized system controller. The centralized system controller has a computer and a magnetic disk for storing a schedule for determining the mode of each LSM. The computer reads out the schedule table from the magnetic disk and controls the modes of the LSM for performing the primary or secondary sortation according to the kinds and amount of the postal matter to be sorted.

Sorter system for postal matter

An apparatus for sorting postal matter or mail to a plurality of stacking bins arranged in a row in accordance with the result of optically scanning and reading ZIP codes and taking out the mail from the stacking bins to a conveyance section arranged along the row of stacking bins whenever a predetermined amount of mail is stacked in a stacking bin. When the sorting operation has come to an end, the mail sorting apparatus detects if there exists any mail on the conveyance section, and takes out the mail from the stacking bins which are opposite to the empty region on the conveyance section downstream the position where mail is on the conveyance path. After the conveyance section moves and there is an empty region opposite to the stacking bin, it then takes out the mail from the stacking bin which was opposite to the position where there was mail. This method is repeated until all mail is removed from the stacking bins.

Postal matter sorting apparatus

The invention provides a sorter with an automatic push-out apparatus. The postal matter is transferred to an empty tray after the corresponding stacking section is full of postal matter. When the number of pieces of postal matter to be stacked at the stacking section within a push-out time duration is above or below a predetermined value before a full-stack status of the stacking section, a control circuit and detectors operate to transfer the postal matter to a corresponding empty tray.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Kazuhito Haruki