Retail edge marker accumulation and collation system
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsDouglas K Herrmann, Gregory A Ludgate
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for collating and stacking long cut retail edge marker strips exiting a roll fed high speed slitter/perforator/cutter apparatus includes a series of angled and stepped baffles configured to receive the cut retail edge marking strips and allow them to fall into and accumulate in bins formed by each angled baffle and then be removed from each bin consecutively by a pusher acting orthogonally to the bins to move and collate the retail edge markers into a final stack collated to meet a specific store planogram requirement.
Claims21
A collator for accumulating and collating media strips exiting an upstream source, comprising:
- a series of angled baffles with each of said series of angled baffles configured to include bins that receive said media strips longitudinally with each of said media strips extending over at least two of said series of angled baffles;
- wherein said series of baffles includes an upstream angled baffle with each of the remainder of said series of baffles configured to cascade from said upstream baffle to eliminate media strip stub points while simultaneously providing a downward slope to enhance media strips sliding down said series of baffles;
- and
- a pusher configured for movement in a cross process direction to said media strips after said media strips have settled into said bins to pull said media strips in collated form from said bins and into a compiled collated stack in store planogram order.
A method for accumulating and collating media strips exiting an upstream source, comprising:
- providing a plurality of angled baffles with each of said plurality of angled baffles configured to include bins that receive said media strips with each of said media strips extending over at least two of said plurality of angled baffles;
- feeding said media strips onto a longitudinal surface of said bins from said upstream source;
- wherein said series of baffles includes an upstream angled baffle with each of the remainder of said plurality of baffles configured to cascade from said upstream baffle to eliminate media strip stub points while simultaneously providing a downward slope to enhance media strip sliding down said plurality of baffles;
- and
- providing a pusher configured for movement orthogonally to said bins after said media strips have settled into said bins to pull said media strips in collated form from said bins and into a compiled collated stack in store planogram order.
An arrangement for collating media strips exiting an upstream source, comprising:
- multiple angled baffles with each of said multiple angled baffles configured to include multiple bins that receive said media strips longitudinally of said bins;
- wherein said multiple angled baffles are stepped and staggered with respect to each other to eliminate media strip stub points while simultaneously providing a downward slope to enhance sliding of said media strips down said multiple angled baffles;
- and
- a pusher configured for movement orthogonally to said longitudinal surfaces of said multiple angled bins after settling of said media strips into said multiple angled bins to remove said media strips in collated form from said multiple angled bins and into a compiled collated stack in store planogram order.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.