Continuous motion case packing apparatus and method

Abstract

A continuous motion apparatus for depacking and packing articles in cases which includes a carriage which carries a plurality of transfer arms; a plurality of article pick-up heads carried by the transfer arms for picking up a group of the articles at a pick-up station to transfer the articles to a release station. In a case packing configuration of the invention, a slug metering section includes a slug feeder continuously receiving articles from an infeed conveyor. A revolving pin bar mechanism is carried in the slug metering section having a plurality of revolving pin bar assemblies to assist in forming the articles into successive groups or slugs of articles. The pin bar assemblies include spaced upstanding pins which are received in crevices between rear articles in a first slug and front articles in a second slug of articles to separate the articles for processing. A slug metering member, which can also have upstanding posts, is carried across the slug metering section and pivots in and out of a conveyance path of the articles in synchronism with the revolving pin bar mechanism to meter the articles. In the depacking configuration, a plurality of article gripper tubes are carried by each article pick-up head arranged in a matrix corresponding to the slug of articles. The gripper tubes have a grip position in which said articles are retained by the pick-up head at the pick-up station for transfer, and a release position in which the articles are released from the pick-up head at the release station. Advantageously, the gripper tubes have a first effective axial length for gripping articles at the pick-up station when the articles are in an upright configuration, and the gripper tubes have a second effective axial length which is compressed and shortened relative to the first axial length when striking an obstacle such as an inverted article to allow sufficient travel for all other gripper tubes to grip articles.