This application claims priority to China Application Serial Number 202111365847.6, filed Nov. 18, 2021, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The present invention relates to a package packing method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a package packing method and electronic device.
In nowadays logistics operations, packing packages faster and properly has been noted. However, in high volume packing process, people may not have enough time to determine a best size of a box, a packing order and an orientation of each of content items, causing the waste of transport space and carton consumables. Therefore, how to determine the best size of the box, the packing order and the orientations of content items in a fast and proper manner is an important issue in this field.
One embodiment of the present disclosure is to provide a package packing method. The package packing method includes the following steps. An order is received. The order corresponds to a plurality of content items, and the content items include a main content item and a plurality of attached content items. Item size data and box size data are received. The item size data includes size of each of the main content item and the attached content items, and the box size data includes size of each of a plurality boxes. A plurality of selected boxes with a minimum width and a minimum height are selected from the boxes according to a length and a width of the main content item. The minimum width and the minimum height of each selected boxes are same, and the selected boxes have the different depths. The minimum width and the minimum height of the selected boxes are set as a two-dimensional size of a reference box. A packing program and a minimum depth of the reference box are calculated under condition of the two-dimensional size of a reference box, according to size of each of the main content item and the attached content items, to fit the content items into the reference box. A target box from the selected boxes is selected according to the minimum depth of the reference box.
Another embodiment of the present disclosure is to provide an electronic device. The electronic device includes a processing circuit and a memory device. The processing circuit is configured to perform following steps. An order is received. The order corresponds to a plurality of content items. The content items include a main content item and a plurality of attached content items. Item size data and box size data are received. The item size data includes size of each of the main content item and the attached content items. The box size data comprises size of each of a plurality boxes. A plurality of selected boxes with a minimum width and a minimum height are selected from the boxes according to a length and a width of the main content item. The minimum width and the minimum height of each selected boxes are same, and the selected boxes have the different depths. The minimum width and the minimum height of the selected boxes are set as a two-dimensional size of a reference box. A packing program and a minimum depth of the reference box are calculated under condition of the two-dimensional size of a reference box, according to size of each of the main content item and the attached content items, to fit the content items into the reference box. A target box from the selected boxes is selected according to the minimum depth of the reference box.
In summary, the present disclosure utilizes the main content item to select the two-dimensional size of the selected boxes, and the two-dimensional size of the selected boxes is set as the two-dimensional size of the reference box. Under the two-dimensional size of the reference box, the minimum depth of the reference box being able to contain the main content item and the attached content items is calculated, in order to calculate a best packing program.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are by examples, and are intended to provide further explanation of the disclosure as claimed.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the present disclosure, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the present disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the present disclosure.
Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the present disclosure, examples of which are described herein and illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While the disclosure will be described in conjunction with embodiments, it will be understood that they are not intended to limit the disclosure to these embodiments. Description of the operation does not intend to limit the operation sequence. Any structures resulting from recombination of elements with equivalent effects are within the scope of the present disclosure. It is noted that, in accordance with the standard practice in the industry, the drawings are only used for understanding and are not drawn to scale. Hence, the drawings are not meant to limit the actual embodiments of the present disclosure. In fact, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily increased or reduced for clarity of discussion. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts for better understanding.
Throughout the specification and drawings, indexes 1~n may be used in the reference numbers of components and signals for ease of referring to respective components and signals. The use of indexes 1~n does not intend to restrict the count of components and signals to any specific number. In the specification and drawings, if a reference number of a particular component or signal is used without using the index, it means that the reference number is used to refer to any unspecific component or signal of corresponding component group or signal group.
Furthermore, it should be understood that the terms, “comprising”, “including”, “having”, “containing”, “involving” and the like, used herein are open-ended, that is, including but not limited to. It will be understood that, as used herein, the phrase “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
In this document, the term “coupled” may also be termed “electrically coupled,” and the term “connected” may be termed “electrically connected.” “Coupled” and “connected” may also be used to indicate that two or more elements cooperate or interact with each other. It will be understood that, although the terms “first,” “second,” etc., may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and, similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of the embodiments.
A description is provided with reference to
In functions, the input interface 17 is configured to receive and transmit an order OD to the processing circuit 11. In response to the order OD received by the processing circuit 11, the processing circuit 11 reads the three-dimension data of each of the content items corresponding to the order OD from the item size data 16 in the memory device 14, and the processing circuit 11 receives the three-dimension data of each of the boxes for containing the content items from the box size data in the memory device 14. And, the processing circuit 11 calculates a best box size and a packing program according to the three-dimensional size of each content items corresponding to the order OD.
The processing circuit 11 includes a selecting circuit 12 and a computing circuit 13. The selecting circuit 12 is configured to select multiple selected boxes with a two-dimensional size greater and closest to a two-dimensional size (length and width) corresponding to the biggest surface of a main content item in the order OD according to the box size data 15. Since the selected boxes are selected by the same condition (such as, the two-dimensional size corresponding to the biggest surface of the main content item), a minimum width and a minimum height of each selected boxes can be same or similar to each other, and depths of the selected boxes are different from each other. The selecting circuit 12 transmits two-dimensional size RS of the selected boxes to the computing circuit 13, and then the computing circuit 13 computes the best packing program. And, how to computes the best packing program by the processing circuit 11 will be described in detail in the following embodiments.
After the processing circuit 11 determines the best target box and the packing program, the processing circuit 11 transmits the output data OUT including information of the target box and the packing program to the output interface 18. In some embodiment, the output interface 18 can convert the output data OUT to the three-dimensional image and user can rotate and observe the three-dimensional image to sequentially place the content items into the target box. In the other embodiments, the output interface 18 can transmit the output OUT to the robotic arm, and the robotic arm can place the content items into the target box according to the output data OUT. In some embodiments, the electronics device includes robotic arm (not shown), which can pack or place the content items into the target box according to the output data OUT.
A description is provided with reference to
In other words, the boxes CONa1~CONa3 have the same two-dimensional size. The depths C1, C2 and C3 of the boxes CONa1~CONa3 are different from each other. The boxes CONb1~CONb3 have the same two-dimensional size. The depths C1, C2 and C3 of the boxes CONb1~CONb3 are different from each other. The boxes CONc1~CONc3 have the same two-dimensional size. The depth C1, C2 and C3 of the boxes CONc1~CONc3 are different from each other. And, the two-dimensional sizes of the boxes CONa1, CONb1 and CONc1 are different from each other.
A description is provided with reference to
A description is provided with reference to
For better understanding, a description of the package packing method S100 is provided with reference to
In step S110, an order is received. The order corresponding to the main content item 110 and attached content items 122, 124 and 126 as shown in
In step S120, item size data of a plurality of content items and box size data are received. The selecting circuit 12 in the processing circuit 11 receives/read the three-dimensional size of each of the main content item 110 and the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 from the item size data 16 stored in the memory device 14. And the selecting circuit 12 receives/read the three-dimensional size of each boxes from the box size data 15 stored in the memory device 14.
In step S130, a plurality of selected boxes are selected from boxes according to a main content item in the order. The processing circuit 11 selects the selected boxes with the minimum width Wm and the minimum height Hm enabling to contain the main content item 110, from the boxes CONa1~CONa3, CONb1~CONb3 and CONc1~CON3, according to the length W1 and height H1 of the main content item 110, as shown in
For example, the width B1 of the boxes CONa1~CONa3 is greater than the length W1 of the main content item 110, the height A1 of the boxes CONa1~CONa3 is greater than the height H1 of the main content item 110. Therefore, the selecting circuit 12 in the processing circuit 11 selects the boxes CONa1~CONa3 with the minimum width B1 and the minimum height A1 in the box size data 15 as the selected boxes, to be able to contain the main content item 110, as shown in
In some embodiments, the main content item 110 are packaged and fixed with buffer/fix structures 112 and 114 in usual. The buffer/fix structures 112 and 114 can be formed by the thick cardboard/anti-collision foam. As a result, the appropriate buffer/fix structures 112 and 114 can be designed according to the two-dimension of the main content item 110. And, the minimum box being able to contain the main content item 110 can be selected according to the reserved width Wr and the reserved height Hr constituted of the main content item 110 and buffer/fix structures 112 and 114, and since the operation is similar with the aforementioned step S130, the description is omitted.
In step S140, a two-dimensional size of a reference box is set according to the selected boxes. For example, the procession circuit 11 sets the width B1 and height A1 of the boxes CONa1~CONa3 as the minimum width Wm and minimum height Hm of the reference box 100.
In some embodiments, if the minimum width Wm of the reference box 100 is greater than the reserved width Wr, the space can be stuffed by a hollow/tubular structure as shown in
In step S150, a minimum depth of the reference box and a packing program are calculated under condition of the two-dimensional size of the reference box according to size data of each content items.
In some embodiments, the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 can be sort by a descending order of areas of the biggest surface, such that the attached content item with the bigger area of the biggest surface can be prior arranged. For example, since the descending order of the areas of the biggest surface of each attached content items 122, 124 and 126 is attached content items 122, 124 and 126 in order, such that the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 can be sequentially packed into the reference box 100. How to arrange the orientations of the content items will be described in detail in the following embodiments.
As shown in
Therefore, under the condition of the two-dimensional size of the reference box 100, the attached content item 122 can be placed in different orientations. And, supposing the attached content item 122 is placed with the orientation as shown in
After placing the attached content item 124, there will be five coordinate positions (not shown) to place the attached content item 126. Under the condition of at least one orientation and the different coordinate positions being able to place the content item 126, whether the content item 126 exceeds the minimum width Wm and the minimum height Hm of the reference box 100 still need to be considered, similarly. If the attached content item 126 can be placed with the orientation without exceed the two-dimensional size RS of the reference box 100, the following steps are performed.
A description of a packing program for the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 is provided with reference to
In step S160, a target box is selected from the selected boxes according to the minimum depth of the reference box. For example, if the depth Dm of the reference box 100 is greater than the depths of the boxes CONa1 and CONa2, and is less than the depth of the box CONa3, the computing circuit 130 selects the box CONa3 as the target box, such that the depth of the target box is greater than and closest to the depth Dm of the reference box 100. And, the computing circuit 130 transmits the best packing program and data of box CONa3 as the output data OUT to the output interface 18. The best packing program includes the packing sequence (such as the descending order of areas of the biggest surface of each attached content items 122, 124 and 126) and the orientation of each attached content items 122, 124 and 126.
As a result, user or the robotic arm can sequentially pack the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 in the order OD into the target box according to the packing sequence. And, the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 are packed into the target box according to the orientation of each attached content items 122, 124 and 126 by the user or the robotic arm.
In some embodiments, after calculating the best packing program, corresponding spacer block 120 can be placed with the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 in the target box, so as to avoid the attached content items 122, 124 and 126 collide with the main content item 110 during transport process.
A description is provided with reference to
In summary, the present disclosure utilizes the main content item 110 to select the two-dimensional size of the selected boxes, and the two-dimensional size of the selected boxes is set as the two-dimensional size RS of the reference box 100. Under the two-dimensional size RS of the reference box 100, the minimum depth Dm of the reference box 100 being able to contain the main content item 110 and the attached content items is calculated. And, the target box is selected according to the minimum depth Dm of the reference box 100. Therefore, the present disclosure, utilizing the main content item 110 to determine the two-dimensional size RS of the reference box 100, can decrease the subsequent computing cost and computes the best packing program faster.
Although the present disclosure has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain embodiments thereof, other embodiments are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the embodiments contained herein.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present disclosure without departing from the scope or spirit of the present disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202111365847.6 | Nov 2021 | CN | national |