Automatic silicon steel batching method for cut-to-length line

Abstract

The invention relates to the technical field of automatic distribution, and discloses an automatic silicon steel batching method for a cut-to-length line, which comprises the following steps: acquiring a conveying request; judging whether a delivery point location and a target point location in the delivery request are located in the same preset area, if not, generating a second transportation instruction according to the delivery point location and a preset relay point location, sending the second transportation instruction to a waiting queue corresponding to a straddle carrier in the same area as the delivery point location, and generating a third transportation instruction according to the relay point location and the target point location, the third transportation instruction is stored in a waiting queue corresponding to the straddle carrier in the same area as the target point location; obtaining a transport completion instruction, wherein the transport completion instruction corresponds to a straddle carrier; and according to the transport completion instruction, selecting the transport instruction arranged at the foremost from the waiting queue of the corresponding straddle carrier, and sending the transport instruction to the corresponding straddle carrier. According to the method, the situation of collision of the two vehicles is avoided, the two straddle carriers can work cooperatively, and the silicon steel distribution efficiency is improved.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of automatic distribution, in particular to an automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line. Background Art

[0002] Before cores are sheared to length, silicon steel coils must be delivered from the warehouse to the unwinders of the shear-to-length line. A cross-carriage is typically used to transport the silicon steel coils between the warehouse and the shear-to-length line. Medium- to large-scale factories often have multiple shear-to-length lines, and a single cross-carriage cannot meet the transportation needs of the entire factory, which can easily lead to production halts on certain production lines. Therefore, multiple cross-carriages are deployed to handle these transport tasks.

[0003] Considering that cross-carriages typically operate on pre-set tracks, if the warehouse is located exactly midway between two shear-to-cross lines, two cross-carriages can be used on the same track. These two cross-carriages can be assigned to different areas without interfering with each other. However, in practice, due to factors such as factory layout, warehouses cannot often be located in the middle. Therefore, how to ensure that transport tasks are met while preventing collisions between cross-carriages on the same track is currently a topic worth studying. Summary of the Invention

[0004] In view of the above-mentioned shortcomings of the prior art, an object of the present invention is to provide a silicon steel automatic batching method for a shear-to-length line to solve one or more problems in the prior art.

[0005] To achieve the above object, the technical solution of the present invention is as follows: An automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line comprises the following steps: Obtaining a transport request, wherein the transport request includes a shipping point and a destination point. The shipping point and the destination point each correspond to a preset area. There are two types of preset areas, each of which corresponds to a straddle carrier. Determine whether the shipping point and the target point are in the same preset area, If so, a first transport instruction is generated based on the shipping point and the target point, and sent to the waiting queue corresponding to the corresponding cross-border vehicle in the same area; If not, a second transport instruction is generated based on the shipping point and the preset relay point, and sent to the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-country vehicles in the same area as the shipping point. A third transport instruction is generated based on the relay point and the target point, and the third transport instruction is stored in the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-country vehicles in the same area as the target point. Obtaining a transport completion instruction, where the transport completion instruction corresponds to a span vehicle; According to the transport completion instruction, the transport instruction at the front of the queue is selected from the waiting queue of the corresponding cross-span vehicle and sent to the corresponding cross-span vehicle.

[0006] Furthermore, the selecting of the transport instruction that is arranged at the front and sending it to the corresponding straddle-crossing vehicle comprises the following steps: Select the transport instruction that is ranked first, and determine whether the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction. If the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction, determine whether the second transport instruction corresponding to the third transport instruction has been executed. If the corresponding second transport instruction has been executed, the selected transport instruction will be sent to the corresponding cross-carriage. If the corresponding second transport instruction has not been executed, the currently selected transport instruction is skipped, the next transport instruction in the arrangement is selected, and it is re-determined whether the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction.

[0007] Furthermore, the selecting of the transport instruction that is arranged at the front and sending it to the corresponding straddle-crossing vehicle comprises the following steps: Select the transport instruction that is ranked first, and determine whether the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction. If the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction, the usage status of the relay point is obtained. If the relay point is fully loaded, the currently selected transport instruction is skipped, the next transport instruction in the queue is selected, and the selected transport instruction is re-determined to see if it is the second transport instruction; If the use status of the relay point is empty, the selected transport instruction will be sent to the corresponding straddle vehicle, and the use status of the relay point will be changed to full.

[0008] Furthermore, before selecting the top-ranked transport instruction, the following steps are included: Determine the corresponding priority for each transport instruction in the queue, Sort the shipping instructions by priority from highest to lowest.

[0009] Furthermore, the method further includes the following steps: Obtain a disabling instruction, wherein the disabling instruction includes the number of the vehicle that is prohibited from crossing the vehicle. According to the number of the disabled cross-car, the corresponding waiting queue is prohibited from being deactivated and the single-car transport mode is entered; In the single-vehicle transport mode, each acquired transport request generates a first transport instruction, which is executed by another cross-travel vehicle on the same track.

[0010] Furthermore, before sending the selected transport instruction to the corresponding straddle-crossing vehicle, the following steps are also included: Determine whether the execution time of the transport instruction currently executed by another cross-car is within the preset time. If the execution time of the transport instruction currently executed by another cross-span vehicle is within the preset time, it is determined whether the transport instruction executed by the other cross-span vehicle is of the same type as the currently selected transport instruction. If they are of the same type, the distances between the two crossing vehicles and the relay point are compared, and the crossing vehicle with the closer distance is selected to execute the corresponding transportation instruction, and the crossing vehicle with the farther distance is selected to execute the next transportation instruction in the queue.

[0011] Compared with the prior art, the beneficial technical effects of the present invention are as follows: by setting up an automatic material distribution method for the cross-carriage, the cross-carriage can automatically load and return materials, and avoid the collision of the two cars, so that the two cross-carriages can work together to improve the distribution efficiency of silicon steel. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0012] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the layout of a factory provided by an embodiment of the present invention is shown. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0013] An automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line comprises the following steps: S100: Obtain a transport request, where the transport request includes a shipping point and a target point, and both the shipping point and the target point correspond to preset areas.

[0014] S200: Determine whether the shipping point and the target point are in the same preset area.

[0015] S300: If yes, generate a first transport instruction according to the shipping point and the target point, and send it to the waiting queue corresponding to the straddle-crossing vehicle in the same area.

[0016] S400. If not, generate a second transport instruction based on the shipping point and the preset relay point, and send it to the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-travel vehicle in the same area as the shipping point. Generate a third transport instruction based on the relay point and the target point, and store the third transport instruction in the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-travel vehicle in the same area as the target point.

[0017] S500: Acquire a transport completion instruction, where the transport completion instruction corresponds to a span vehicle.

[0018] S600: According to the transport completion instruction, the transport instruction at the top of the queue is selected from the waiting queue of the corresponding span-transfer vehicle and sent to the corresponding span-transfer vehicle.

[0019] In actual use, the transportation tasks involved in the cross-cutting line include material calling tasks and material return tasks.

[0020] The material request process is as follows: the shear-to-cross line issues a request for material, a cross-carriage truck retrieves an empty material rack from the corresponding loading saddle rack of the shear-to-cross line, and transports it to the corresponding saddle rack in the warehouse's stocking area. Once the four-way truck completes the empty rack's transportation within the stocking area, the system determines the task is complete, allowing the four-way truck to proceed to the next task. Once stocking is complete, the warehouse initiates a request for material delivery, and the cross-carriage truck then delivers the stock rack to the loading saddle rack of the shear-to-cross line that requested the material.

[0021] The process for material return is as follows: the shear-to-cross line sends a material return request, the cross-carriage moves to the saddle rack at the shear-to-cross line's material return location, removes the rack, and moves it to the corresponding warehouse's stocking area. The rack is then transported to an empty saddle rack, completing the cross-carriage's material removal task. After depositing the silicon steel on the rack to the designated storage location, the warehouse initiates a request to return the empty rack. The cross-carriage then executes this task, transporting the empty rack to the saddle rack corresponding to the material return location, completing the material return and storage task.

[0022] It can be seen that whether it is ordering or returning materials, it is composed of two one-way transportation links: transporting from the cross-cutting line to the warehouse and transporting from the warehouse to the cross-cutting line, and the two links are not carried out continuously. Therefore, the specific ordering and returning tasks can be split into one-way transportation links. That is, the transportation request in this embodiment is any one of the above-mentioned ordering requests, distribution and preparation requests, return requests, and empty rack return requests. Similarly, the shipping point and target point are any one of the warehouse and the cross-cutting line, and the shipping point and target point in the same transportation request are different.

[0023] A preset area is defined based on the proximity of the warehouse, the shear-to-length line, and the tracks where the cross-carriages are located. Each preset area covers at least one warehouse preparation area and at least one unloading and loading station of the shear-to-length line. There are two preset areas, one for each cross-carriage on the same track.

[0024] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the layout between multiple cross-cutting lines and multiple warehouses in a factory. Among them, three warehouses (defined as No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3) are set up side by side, a large cross-cutting line is set up parallel to the warehouse area, and a small cross-cutting line is set up in the extension direction of the warehouse area. A track is set up between the large cross-cutting line and the warehouse area, and two cross-cars are carried on the track. There are some saddle racks on both sides of the track. The two preset areas divided in the figure are Zone 1 and Zone 2. Among them, Zone 1 covers the small cross-cutting line, half of the large cross-cutting line, and half of Warehouse No. 1, and Zone 2 covers the other half of the large cross-cutting line, Warehouses No. 2 and No. 3. The saddle racks between Zones 1 and 2 are set as relay points.

[0025] When the shipping point and the target point in the same transport request are in the same preset area, for example, the shipping point is a small cross-cutting line, and the target point is Warehouse No. 1 in Area 1, both locations are in Area 1. The cross-over vehicle with an activity range in Area 1 can complete the transportation work independently. Therefore, according to step S300, the transport request can be directly assigned to the cross-over vehicle corresponding to Area 1 for execution.

[0026] However, if the shipping point and destination in the same transport request are located in different preset areas, for example, the shipping point is a small cross-cutting line and the destination is Warehouse 2 in Area 2, since the cross-strand truck in Area 1 cannot enter Area 2, the cross-strand truck in Area 1 must first transport the goods from the shipping point to the relay point, and then the cross-strand truck in Area 2 will transfer the goods from the relay point to the destination. Therefore, in step S400, the transport request needs to be split into the second and third transport instructions, and then matched to the corresponding two cross-strand trucks.

[0027] In addition, due to the large number of warehouses and cross-cutting lines, it is possible that multiple transportation instructions will be matched to the same cross-carriage for execution in a short period of time, and the cross-carriage cannot complete all executions in a short period of time. Therefore, the transportation instructions are first stored in the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-carriage. When the cross-carriage completes the current transportation instruction, the next transportation instruction to be executed will be selected from the waiting queue.

[0028] Normally, the cross-carriage selects transport instructions from the waiting queue in the order they are stored. However, in actual production, some transport tasks may have a more significant impact on production and need to be completed as soon as possible.

[0029] Therefore, in one embodiment, before selecting the top-ranked shipping instruction, the following steps are included: Determine the corresponding priority for each transport instruction in the queue, Sort the shipping instructions by priority from highest to lowest.

[0030] Specifically, transporting tasks for stock racks at relay points takes precedence over material requests from vacant cut-to-length lines, which in turn take precedence over other material requests. To identify the production status of vacant cut-to-length lines, the corresponding production line status information is added to the transport request.

[0031] In one embodiment, selecting the transport instruction with the highest order and sending it to the corresponding span vehicle includes the following steps: S610: Select the transport instruction that is ranked the highest, and determine whether the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction.

[0032] S620: If the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction, obtain the usage status of the relay point.

[0033] S621. If the usage status of the relay point is fully loaded, skip the currently selected transport instruction, select the next transport instruction in the arrangement, and re-determine whether the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction.

[0034] S622: If the use status of the relay point is empty, the selected transport instruction is sent to the corresponding straddle vehicle, and the use status of the relay point is changed to fully loaded.

[0035] Multiple relay points can be set. When there are multiple relay points, each relay point needs to be numbered differently.

[0036] In this embodiment, the existence of multiple relay points is used as an example for explanation. In step S620, the usage status of multiple relay points needs to be judged in sequence. When the usage status of any relay point is unloaded, the judgment is interrupted and the number of the relay point is added to the second transportation instruction; only when the usage status of all relay points is fully loaded, the current transportation instruction will be skipped to execute other transportation instructions.

[0037] As can be seen, the relay point in the second transport instruction generated in step S400 is a virtual entity. Only when the second transport instruction is executed and an unloaded relay point is selected, the relay point number becomes a clear destination in the second transport instruction. Similarly, the relay point serving as the departure point in the third transport instruction in step S400 is also a virtual entity. When the second transport instruction is executed, the system receives a transport completion instruction corresponding to the straddle carrier and then uses the corresponding relay point number as the relay point in the third transport instruction.

[0038] In one embodiment, selecting the transport instruction with the highest order and sending it to the corresponding span vehicle further includes the following steps: S630: If the selected transport instruction is not the second transport instruction, determine whether the next selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction.

[0039] S631: If the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction, determine whether the second transport instruction corresponding to the third transport instruction has been executed.

[0040] 633. If the corresponding second transport instruction has been executed, the selected transport instruction is sent to the corresponding cross-span vehicle.

[0041] 634. If the corresponding second transport instruction has not been executed, skip the currently selected transport instruction, select the next transport instruction in the arrangement, and re-determine whether the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction.

[0042] To determine whether the second transport instruction corresponding to the third transport instruction has been executed, it can be determined by whether there is a relay point number in the third transport instruction. When the virtual relay point in the third transport instruction has been replaced by a specific number, it means that the corresponding second transport instruction has been executed, and the goods to be transferred have been stored at the intermediate point with the corresponding number.

[0043] In one embodiment, before sending the selected transport instruction to the corresponding span vehicle, the following steps are further included: S640: Determine whether the execution time corresponding to the transport instruction currently executed by another straddle-crossing vehicle is within a preset time.

[0044] S650: If the execution time corresponding to the transport instruction currently executed by another straddle-crossing vehicle is within the preset time, determine whether the transport instruction executed by the other straddle-crossing vehicle is of the same type as the currently selected transport instruction.

[0045] S660: If they are of the same type, the distances between the two crossing vehicles and the relay point are compared, and the crossing vehicle with the closer distance is selected to execute the corresponding transport instruction, and the crossing vehicle with the farther distance is selected to execute the next transport instruction in the queue.

[0046] The preset time is manually set. If two span vehicles are required to pick up or transport materials to a relay point at the same time, congestion or collisions can easily occur at the relay point. Therefore, only one span vehicle is allowed to execute the second or third transport order within a certain timeframe. The span vehicle closer to the relay point will take priority, allowing the other span vehicle to proceed to the next transport order.

[0047] In one embodiment, a method for automatically proportioning silicon steel for a shear-to-length line further includes the following steps: Get the disable instruction, which contains the number of the vehicle that is disabled from crossing the vehicle.

[0048] According to the number of the disabled straddle vehicle, the corresponding waiting queue is prohibited from being deactivated and the single vehicle transport mode is entered.

[0049] In the single-vehicle transport mode, each acquired transport request generates a first transport instruction, which is executed by another cross-travel vehicle on the same track.

[0050] When a cross-carriage needs to be deactivated due to a malfunction or maintenance, a manual disable command is issued for the deactivated cross-carriage, changing the operating mode from dual-carriage mode to single-carriage mode. In single-carriage mode, the remaining cross-carriage can perform tasks in both zones 1 and 2.

[0051] The technical features of the above-mentioned embodiments can be combined arbitrarily. In order to make the description concise, not all possible combinations of the technical features in the above-mentioned embodiments are described. However, as long as there is no contradiction in the combination of these technical features, they should be considered to be within the scope of this specification.

[0052] The above-described embodiments merely illustrate several implementations of the present invention, and while their descriptions are relatively specific and detailed, they should not be construed as limiting the scope of the patent. It should be noted that a person skilled in the art would be able to make numerous variations and improvements without departing from the spirit of the present invention, all of which fall within the scope of protection of the present invention. Therefore, the scope of protection of the patent for this invention shall be determined by the appended claims.

Claims

1. A silicon steel automatic batching method for a shear-to-length line, characterized in that: The following steps are involved: Obtaining a transport request, wherein the transport request includes a shipping point and a destination point. The shipping point and the destination point each correspond to a preset area. There are two types of preset areas, each of which corresponds to a straddle carrier. Determine whether the shipping point and the target point are in the same preset area, If so, a first transport instruction is generated based on the shipping point and the target point, and sent to the waiting queue corresponding to the corresponding cross-border vehicle in the same area; If not, a second transport instruction is generated based on the shipping point and the preset relay point, and sent to the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-country vehicles in the same area as the shipping point. A third transport instruction is generated based on the relay point and the target point, and the third transport instruction is stored in the waiting queue corresponding to the cross-country vehicles in the same area as the target point. Obtaining a transport completion instruction, where the transport completion instruction corresponds to a span vehicle; According to the transport completion instruction, the transport instruction at the front of the queue is selected from the waiting queue of the corresponding cross-span vehicle and sent to the corresponding cross-span vehicle.

2. The automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line according to claim 1, characterized in that: The method of selecting the transport instruction that is arranged at the front and sending it to the corresponding straddle-crossing vehicle comprises the following steps: Select the transport instruction that is ranked first, and determine whether the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction. If the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction, determine whether the second transport instruction corresponding to the third transport instruction has been executed. If the corresponding second transport instruction has been executed, the selected transport instruction will be sent to the corresponding cross-carriage. If the corresponding second transport instruction has not been executed, the currently selected transport instruction is skipped, the next transport instruction in the arrangement is selected, and it is re-determined whether the selected transport instruction is the third transport instruction.

3. The automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line according to claim 1, characterized in that: The method of selecting the transport instruction that is arranged at the front and sending it to the corresponding straddle-crossing vehicle comprises the following steps: Select the transport instruction that is ranked first, and determine whether the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction. If the selected transport instruction is the second transport instruction, the usage status of the relay point is obtained. If the relay point is fully loaded, the currently selected transport instruction is skipped, the next transport instruction in the queue is selected, and the selected transport instruction is re-determined to see if it is the second transport instruction; If the use status of the relay point is empty, the selected transport instruction will be sent to the corresponding straddle vehicle, and the use status of the relay point will be changed to full.

4. The automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line according to claim 1, characterized in that: Before selecting the top shipping instructions, the following steps are included: Determine the corresponding priority for each transport instruction in the queue, Sort the shipping instructions by priority from highest to lowest.

5. The automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line according to claim 1, characterized in that: The following steps are also included: Obtain a disabling instruction, wherein the disabling instruction includes the number of the vehicle that is prohibited from crossing the vehicle. According to the number of the disabled cross-car, the corresponding waiting queue is prohibited from being deactivated and the single-car transport mode is entered; In the single-vehicle transport mode, each acquired transport request generates a first transport instruction, which is executed by another cross-travel vehicle on the same track.

6. The automatic silicon steel batching method for a shear-to-length line according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that: Before sending the selected transport instruction to the corresponding straddle carrier, the following steps are also included: Determine whether the execution time of the transport instruction currently executed by another cross-car is within the preset time. If the execution time of the transport instruction currently executed by another cross-span vehicle is within the preset time, it is determined whether the transport instruction executed by the other cross-span vehicle is of the same type as the currently selected transport instruction. If they are of the same type, the distances between the two crossing vehicles and the relay point are compared, and the crossing vehicle with the closer distance is selected to execute the corresponding transportation instruction, and the crossing vehicle with the farther distance is selected to execute the next transportation instruction in the queue.

Images