Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshimasa Ohta

Masayasu Arakawa

Masanao Yamamoto

A production line for manufacturing automobiles, for example, has a plurality of movable carriages for carrying workpieces such as automotive bodies and a plurality of work stations for processing the automotive bodies such as by installing parts thereon or machining them. A controller which controls the work stations to process the automotive bodies has a memory having a plurality of storage areas for storing carriage identification data from the carriages that have arrived at the work stations and automotive body type data regarding the automotive bodies on the carriages, and also for storing carriage identification data transmitted from next carriages to arrive at the work stations and automotive body type data about the automotive bodies carried on the next carriages. When a carriage arrives at a work station, the carriage identification data about the carriage and the next carriage are transmitted from the carriage to the work station, and the controller transmits the automotive type data about the automotive bodies on the carriage and the next carriage to the work station. The automotive body in the work station can be processed based on the transmitted automotive body type data about the automotive body on the carriage and then the work station can be prepared based on the transmitted automotive body type data about the automotive body on the next carriage for the processing of the next automotive body which is to arrive next at the work station.

Production management system with simultaneous multiple data transmission

A production line for manufacturing automobiles, for example, has a plurality of self-propelled carriages for carrying workpieces respectively thereon, the self-propelled carriages having respective first emergency shutdown circuits, and a plurality of automatic machines for processing the workpieces on the self-propelled carriages, respectively, the automatic machines having respective second emergency shutdown circuits, respectively. When one of the self-propelled carriage malfunctions, the first emergency circuit thereon is energized to interrupt movement of the self-propelled carriage along the production line, and operation of the automatic machine which processes the work-piece on the stopped self-propelled carriage is stopped in response to a signal which energizes the first emergency shutdown means on the self-propelled carriage. Alternatively, the second emergency shutdown circuit on one of the automatic machines is energized to interrupt operation of the automatic machine, and movement of the malfunctioning self-propelled carriage which carries the workpiece processed by stopped automatic machine is stopped in response to a signal which energizes the second emergency shutdown circuit.

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Sayama, Japan

Yoshimasa Ohta