Feeding method for work products and apparatus thereof

Abstract

A method of feeding work products such as can ends between different processes having different throughput requirements uses various feeding apparatus. In the first process, the work products are continuously mechanically treated at the same time by a group of first machines and then continuously discharged to a second process. This second process receives the work products fed from the plural discharging parts of the first machines. The apparatus in the second process has fewer receiving inlets than discharge parts of the first machines. In the second process, the work products are further mechanically treated. The method feeds the work products discharged from the plural discharging parts in the first process along respective feeding paths and then quickly feeds a predetermined number of work products to form a group of work products. This group is held in an arranged state in respective stay parts connected to the feeding paths. A robot system will then successively feed the work groups to the feeding part for the second process. Alternatively, the method can be arranged such that a certain process having a high output can feed to various machines of a subsequent process having a lower ouput. Various feeding apparatus can be used in order to divide the products from the certain process having the higher output into appropriate groups to be fed to the various machines of the subsequent slower process.