Patent Application
20240237786
The present invention relates to a transfer module for a component in a production line and to a product manufacturing facility equipped with such a production line.
There are production facilities, in particular in the field of footwear production, which use a production line equipped with various manufacturing stations and in which transfer modules circulate, to which components are fastened. For this purpose, transfer modules have pins, and the components are provided with perforations that correspond to the location of the pins in order to be held by the pins on the module.
These facilities are relatively complex, since the transfer modules are provided for a precise component and cannot be used for different components that are, for example, modified in a series of components of which the dimensions vary, wherein the shape remains the same in order to be processed in this same production line.
This disadvantage is particularly serious, since it requires the production of modules designed for each particular shape of component.
An object of the present invention is to provide a transfer module that is adaptable to different types of components in order to fasten the components to pins and enable their transfer to the various stations of the production line.
For this purpose, the present invention includes a transfer module for components that are held in position on the module by pins and circulate in a production line that is equipped with workstations. According to an example embodiment of the present invention, this module has a plate provided with reference positions, of which at least certain positions are equipped with lowerable pins, which can be moved between a position in which they are lowered beneath the surface of the plate and a position in which they are extended out of the plate so as to receive the component which is to be held on the plate.
This transfer module may have many advantages over convention transfer modules with a plate which are equipped with stationary studs, since it enables a highly flexible adaptation for the diversification of a production line. The transfer module according to the present invention reduces the number of modules to be stored depending on the types of components to be fastened to the plate of a module, since the modules do not have to be exchanged in a production line. The module is highly efficient, since it can be easily freed from production waste for immediate reuse.
The simplicity of the module for its use despite the very great diversity and possibilities results from the fact that the module is passive; it has neither a motor nor an actuator and therefore requires no connection for its power supply.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the reference positions are distributed according to a grid with coordinates that mark each position and its possible occupation by a lowerable pin. This enables a very large diversification of the reference points and at the same time guarantees the precision of control of the activation of the plate.
According to a further feature, the plate is formed by a board that is provided with bores at the reference positions and a honeycomb-shaped base, the recesses of which correspond to the bores of the reference positions of the board, wherein the selected recesses have lowerable pins that are inserted into the bores of the board.
This module can be easily adapted by changing the number of reference points and blocks along with their locations. It is sufficient to remove the plate from the carrier to access the blocks and the recesses receiving them in order to move, remove or add the blocks.
These advantages are particularly evident if the lowerable pin is integrated into a block, which is housed in a recess of the base of the plate, and the block is held by the carrier plate of the frame, which is provided with bores or openings that enable access to the piston of the block that is placed in a recess.
According to a further advantageous feature of the present invention, the block is a cylinder that receives a piston provided with a pin, wherein the piston is movable in the cylinder between a first and a second position by being held in each position by a holding device.
This embodiment of the present invention is particularly simple and reliable.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the holding device is a clip-in device in order to interact with the piston in its lowered position or in its retracted position.
This type of hold is smooth and easy to control, in particular if the clip-in device consists of a ball combined with a spring and two grooves in the surface of the cylinder, wherein these grooves are assigned to one and the other position of the piston, respectively, wherein the spring pushes the ball into a position projecting from the surface of the cylinder in order to enter the groove of the piston, which has arrived opposite the ball, wherein this ball is able to be pushed back under the effect of a thrust exerted by the piston on the ball, in order to be lowered beneath the surface of the cylinder, compressing the spring and enabling the release of the piston.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the board is a steel plate, the surface of which is non-reflective and which is separated from the base by a heat-insulating plate. This board, which receives the pins, makes it possible to hold them well in the extended position. It withstands mechanical effects and prevents accidental reflections of any laser beam that is used for an operation carried out on the component.
The present invention also relates to a product manufacturing facility that contains a production line with workstations and conveying devices that circulate between the workstations and transport modules that carry components to be processed in the stations, wherein these modules are as defined above.
This facility combines all the advantages of the simplicity of the functional design and the reliability of the transfer modules.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the facility contains a management unit that controls the movement of the conveying devices and the operations carried out in the station according to a defined program. This management unit guarantees the functional flexibility of the facility and the diversification of the operations possible in the same facility with the same transfer modules.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the facility contains an activation device of the transfer module, in order to actuate the blocks and extend their pin according to the component to be received on the module.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the activation device consists of two longitudinal rails that surround a receiving point of a plate and carry a transverse rail provided with a transverse slide that is equipped with an actuator in order to arrive at the selected position of a reference point, in order to push its piston and extend the pin of the block from this selected reference point.
This activation device is easy to control despite the large number of possible positions for reference points.
According to a further feature of the present invention, in the activation device, the transverse rail is carried by two longitudinal slides that are driven synchronously on the longitudinal rails by a screw-and-nut gearbox that is assigned to each slide and its longitudinal rail and is driven by a motor and a transverse shaft that is connected to the two screws, wherein the transverse slide is driven by a screw-and-nut gearbox that is integrated into the transverse rail and actuated by a motor carried by the transverse rail.
This design of the activation device makes it possible in particular to divide the transverse rail and thus the actuators in order to reduce the movements of the activation device and thus the time required to activate the plate of a module.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the facility contains a dispensing station that consists of a removal and cleaning station, which has a portal frame with a rail that covers the transfer module that has arrived in the dispensing station, and is provided with a slide that is equipped with a gripping device upstream and a cleaning device downstream, in order to place the gripping device over the transfer module and remove the product, and then to displace it, in order to dispense the product and simultaneously activate the cleaning device as it passes over the empty transfer module in order to clean it.
This design is simple and efficient.
According to a further feature of the present invention, the gripping device in the facility has a gripping head with suction cups supplied with negative pressure, and the cleaning device contains an air nozzle supplied with compressed air.
Such a gripping device is like diversifying the production line; it adapts in a versatile way to many shapes of products that are not necessarily flat.
According to a further advantageous feature of the present invention, the device for returning the facility to the initial state in order to lower the extended pins of the plate consists of a plate for retracting all the pins of a plate to the plane of the upper side of the plate of the transfer module.
This design is particularly simple.
The present invention is described in more detail below with the aid of an example embodiment of a transfer module and a production line equipped with such transfer modules.
The present invention relates to a component transfer module 1 for manufacturing products on a production line LP, which is equipped with workstations OP1-OP3 in order to transfer the components from the entrance of the line for dispensing products.
In order to simplify the description, it is agreed that a product to be produced may require one or more components that are covered here by the expression “the component.” The component is an element that belongs to the manufacture of the product, or is transformed by means of processing through cutting, deformation, chemical action or other means in order to obtain the product.
Due to the diversity of the two-dimensional or three-dimensional shapes it can have, the component is not shown.
The need to which the present invention responds is to position the component precisely on a module 1 at the entrance to the production line LP, so that it arrives in a precise position at a station OP1-OP3 in order to carry out the operations.
The product to be produced can be a finished or semi-finished product, which then forms a component that is used in a further production line.
A production line LP is shown in
At the entrance of the line, the component is installed in a precise position on the transfer module 1 in the loading station PC.
At the end of the line, the module 1 arrives at the dispensing station PS, where:
The production line LP is equivalent to a circuit that connects the dispensing station PS to the entrance, which is a loading station PC. This circuit can have a branch to remove or insert modules 1 through types of switch connections, depending on the requirements of the operations and the flow of necessary modules.
The various automatic or manual movements and operations are managed by a central unit UC, which uses the signals from sensors CPi and information from a database 3D in order to control the movements and operations. These operations can be user-adapted from one module 1 to another or be the same in groups of modules or standardized by series of modules.
The different ways of loading a module 1 can vary from one transfer module to another on the production line and require the adaptation of the module (s).
This adaptation and functional flexibility is made possible by the adaptation features of the transfer modules 1 and their management.
More precisely, the components are carried by transfer modules 1 between the entrance PC and the dispensing PS of the production line LP, with the return of the transfer modules 1, which circulate in a circle. The modules 1 are transported by conveying devices C1-C4 that pass through the various stations (OP1, OP2, OP3, PS, PC), endlessly or in start/stop mode with the possible retention of modules 1 in one or the other station, depending on the operations.
The transfer module 1 consists of a frame 2, in particular a standard frame, compatible with the conveying devices C1-C4, which are themselves standard. The frame 2 carries a plate 3 consisting of a base 33, which is covered by a board 31, possibly with the interposition of a heat-insulating intermediate plate 32.
The plate 3 receives the component and holds it in a precise position that allows the various operations to be carried out in the OP1-OP3 stations of the production line LP.
The frame 2 consists of a carrier plate 21 connected to a sliding piece 22 for the transport of the module. The carrier plate 21 receives the plate 3 to which it belongs, as explained below.
The board 31 is a plate with a distribution of reference points PR, for example according to a uniform grid or according to groups of reference points PR materialized by bores 311, for the passage of the lowerable pins 41 integrated into the thickness of the plate 3. For example, the plate 3 is fastened to the carrier plate 33 by screws 312.
According to this example, the plate 3 consists of a board 31 made of steel, the surface of which is non-reflective in order to avoid the reflection of radiation, for example in the case of an operation using a laser beam, onto the production line.
The board 31 is connected to the base 33 by a heat-insulating intermediate plate 32, which neutralizes the effect of the heat conduction of the board to the core of the plate 3, in particular to the blocks 4.
In the simplest general case, the reference points are PR bores 311, which are distributed according to an orthonormal grid and marked by their coordinates.
The reference points PR represent possible fastening points of the component to the plate 3. Depending on its shape and purpose, the component is fastened to a certain number of selected reference points PRS among the set of possible reference points PR that are provided on the board 31.
In the particular case of facilities intended for one type of manufacturing, the board 31 may have only a limited number of reference points PR, depending on the general shape of the components to be received.
In one case or another, the reference points PR are selected and receive a lowerable pin 41. All or only some of the lowerable pins 41 of the selected reference points PRS are activated depending on the characteristics of the component to be received. The pins of the other blocks 4 remain lowered.
The board 31 is combined with the base 33, which has a honeycomb structure of which the recesses 331 are assigned to the reference points PR.
For example, the section of
Thus, the plate 3 shows a double organization of reference points PR:
According to
The two positions are defined by a clip-in element: The surface of the piston 43 is provided with two grooves 431, 432, and the cylinder 42 has a clip-in element 421, for example in the form of a lowerable ball, which is pushed by a spring 422 in order protrude from the surface of the cylinder. The spring 422 can consist of an elastic ring, which is housed in a groove 423 of the cylinder and thus surrounds the clip-in element 421 like the ball. There could also be two or three clip-in elements in the form of balls that are distributed on a circle and subjected to the effect of the elastic ring 422. The groove 423 receiving the elastic ring 422 is formed by a reduction in the diameter of the cylinder 42, which receives a blocking ring 424, which also completes the shoulder 425.
The cross-section of each of the grooves 431, 433 and the diameter of the ball 421 correspond, such that each groove can position itself well on the ball.
Each groove 431, 433 preferably has a circular arc cross-section slightly widened on the side of the other groove, in order to form a ramp 432, which allows the piston 43 to progressively push back the ball 421 if the piston is pushed in the direction of the extension of the pin 41 (
In contrast, the other edge (or outer edge) of each groove 431, 433 has no ramp and thus forms an end stop that holds the piston 43 back in this direction and that can only be displaced between these two end positions.
The grooves 431, 433 and the ramp 432 are rotationally symmetrical shapes of the piston 43, such that the orientation of the piston 43 about its axis has no significance for the interaction with the ball 421.
The transverse rail 52a is driven in the translational direction by a motor 511, the output of which is a transverse shaft 512 that drives a stationary longitudinal screw (not shown), which is integrated into each longitudinal rail 51, which cooperates with a nut that is freely rotatable but fixed in translation to each slide 513 that carries the transverse rail 52a.
The end of the transverse rail 52a is equipped with a motor 521 that drives a stationary screw that is housed in the transverse rail and interacts with a nut firmly connected to the transverse slide 522a.
The transverse slide 522a carries an actuator 523a.
The pneumatic or electromechanical actuator 523a has a rod 524, which is movable in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the longitudinal rails 51.
According to the illustrated embodiment, the transverse rail 52a is split with a further transverse rail 52b, which carries a transverse slide 522b independent of the slide 522a, which circulates on the first transverse rail 52a. This doubling of the slides 522a, 522b reduces the paths in the direction XX, since the slides divide the plate 3 into two halves, which reduces the preparation time of a module 1.
Each slide 522a, b is controlled by the central unit UC according to a program to come in front of the block 4 to be activated and to push the piston 43 of the block into the activated position and let the pin 41 protrude from the board 31.
The putting out of operation of the plate 3, which is upstream of the activation of the plate, i.e. the lowering of the pins 41, is preferably carried out globally with a single plate, which is applied to the upper side of the pins 41 of a module 1 and pushes them in until they are lowered into the board 31 of the module 1, which is thus returned to its initial state.
The module 1 can then be reset by activating the blocks 4 that are required for the new operating cycle of the module 1.
Cleaning the plate 3 at the end of a circle is necessary so that it can be used for the new component and also to avoid the risk of the pins 41 becoming blocked in the bores 311 of the board 31 by the waste from operations carried out on the production line.
The dispensing station 7 corresponds to the unloading station PS1 and the cleaning station PS2, which are shown in
The station 7 is a portal frame with a rail 72 guiding the slide 73, which is equipped with a gripping device 74 and a cleaning device 75, each of which is assigned to a distributor 741, 751, which supplies the negative pressure or pressure to the head with suction cups 742 of the gripping device 74, which operates with negative pressure, and the pressure to the cleaning nozzle 752 of the cleaning device 75.
The gripping head 742 is carried by a working cylinder 743, which controls its vertical movement; the air nozzle 742 is carried by a working cylinder 753, which controls the vertical movement of the slide 73, which first positions itself on the gripping head 742 above the plate 1 and then takes the product P and is displaced to the right, while the air nozzle 752 is lowered onto the plate 1 and sweeps it with a stream of air, by passing transversely through the plate 3 to arrive at the position shown. The gripping head 742 then releases the product.
The plate 1 cleaned in this way can be put out of operation by lowering all its pins 41 and then transferred to the reset station PS3, which is equipped with the facility 5 of
The present invention thus relates to a product manufacturing facility containing a production line with workstations and conveying devices circulating between the stations and carrying the components to be processed in the stations, characterized in that it contains transfer modules 1 as described above for transferring the components between the various stations OP1-OP3, PC, PS of the production line LP.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2105609 | May 2021 | FR | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2022/064465 | 5/27/2022 | WO |
