Box-packing apparatus

A box-packing apparatus comprising:

• a conveyance unit that conveys a plurality of articles;
• an alignment unit that aligns the conveyed articles so that articles that are mutually adjacent partially overlap to thereby form an article group;
• an accumulation unit that transfers the article group and accumulates a plurality of the article groups such that they are parallel to each other on a box-packing conveyance route;
• a contact unit that contacts the articles that are on a starting-end side of the box-packing conveyance route in the accumulated article groups;
• a drive unit that drives the contact unit;
• a gate that is positioned on a terminal end of the box-packing conveyance route and that supports a plurality of the article groups;
• a pusher that contacts from above and pushes downward the article groups on the gate;
• and
• a control unit that controls the drive unit to move the contact unit toward the box-packing conveyance route terminal end to thereby collectively move onto the gate the article groups that have been accumulated by the accumulation unit and that drives the gate and the pusher to collectively pack the article groups in a box positioned under the gate, wherein for all natural numbers k from 1 to n, the alignment unit makes a compression ratio of the k+1th row of article group lower than a compression ratio of the kth row of article group.