The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 13, 1994
Filed:
Mar. 16, 1993
Satomi Furukawa, Kawasaki, JP;
Fujitsu Limited, Kawasaki, JP;
Abstract
An apparatus is provided for controlling transport of racks in a manufacturing line which includes a series of processes and has buffers associated with the respective processes for temporarily keeping racks carrying semimanufactured articles to be transported to the respective processes. The apparatus includes a host computer having a memory and being in communication with the processes and with the buffers, and a carry-out request table stored in the memory for recording rack carry-out requests from the processes. The host computer includes request monitoring means for monitoring the carry-out request table. The request monitoring means operates in response to detection of a carry-out request to output a transport command to transport a rack corresponding to the carry-out request to a next process only when the number of racks kept in a buffer associated with a second next process of the rack is smaller than a predetermined value.