Spanning Lifts for Balanced Shuttle Loads in High-Bay Storage
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Solution Overview
Problem
High bay racking storage facilities face challenges in balancing shuttle loads across aisles, optimizing vertical space usage, and achieving high throughput independently of storage height, while also dealing with complex control and sorting requirements in the front zone.
Innovation Solution
Vertically dividing storage racking into sub-storages with spanning lifts connecting all levels, allowing for balanced shuttle loads and improved space utilization, and using drive-through storage lifts with buffer conveyors to enhance throughput, while minimizing cross-conveyance in the front zone by enabling direct transfers between adjacent aisles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If inter-aisle transfer is implemented for adjacent racks, then front zone functions become obsolete, but outermost racks cannot share this function leading to unbalanced shuttle loads
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces vertical dimension by implementing lifts at cross conveyance locations between adjacent aisles. This allows units to be transferred between aisles at different vertical levels, creating a three-dimensional transfer system that balances shuttle loads across all aisles including outermost racks, while eliminating front zone sorting functions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses cross conveyance locations as intermediary transfer points between adjacent aisles. These locations serve as mediators that enable direct unit transfer between aisles without requiring front zone intervention, thereby obsoleting front zone sorting functions while maintaining balanced shuttle operations.
2Volume of moving object
If maximum height of storage racking is exceeded, then vertical space utilization improves, but shuttle system limitations and duplicate inventory tracking requirements arise
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the high-bay storage into multiple levels with cross conveyance locations at different vertical positions. This segmentation allows the system to exceed maximum racking height while maintaining shuttle system functionality through distributed transfer points at various levels, eliminating the need for duplicate inventory tracking.
3Productivity
If complex control and sorting in front zone is implemented, then high throughput is achieved, but system complexity and space requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the sorting and sequencing functions from the front zone and relocates them to the cross conveyance locations between aisles. This extraction eliminates complex front zone control systems while maintaining high throughput, as sorting is performed distributed across multiple vertical levels throughout the storage facility.
Data Source
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AI summary
Method of making order and/or product units (T) available from a storage facility (1) in a wherein the storage facility comprises: - a storage racking comprising a plurality of multilevel storage racks (R) in which order and/or product units are stored, wherein the storage racks are disposed in pairs with an aisle in-between and the racks of adjoining pairs are arranged back-to-back; - at least one automatic storage and retrieval device of the shuttle type provided for each storage racking aisle, wherein the order and/or product units are stored and retrieved from the storage racks by the automatic storage and retrieval device; - wherein order and/or product units (T) are exchanged directly between two adjoining storage racks (R) from a source storage rack to an adjacent destination storage rack via cross conveyance locations (Q) in the storage racks themselves and the shuttle (5) itself displaces the order and/or product units (T) within the cross conveyance locations (Q); - at least one storage lift (8) used to transfer the order and/or product units to at least one storage-exit conveyor; - at least said one storage-exit conveyor per storage lift (8) provided for retrieval of order and/or product units from the storage racking; - at least one storage-entry conveyor per storage lift (8) provided for feeding order and/or product units into the storage racking; wherein the storage racking is vertically divided into at least two sub-storages (A, B) and has at least one spanning lift (13) connecting all storage levels and both sub-storages.