System for sorting commercial articles and method therefor

An inflow article management system for managing the inflow of commercial articles comprising:

• an input feeding means through which a vendor can feed his identification information when he puts his article into an inflow line;
• an article identification information reading means to read the information which is attached to an article and is related with its attributes;
• an article information storing means to store an article information table connecting the vendor identification information with the identification information of articles and the number of the articles to be received;
• and
• an inflow article information control means which, when the identification information is fed through the input feeding means by the vendor and the article information is read, compares those inputs with the article information table, compares the number of articles currently provided by the vendor with the number of the same articles to be received, and writes the number of currently provided articles into the article information storing means.

An inflow article management system comprising:

• a plurality of inflow conveyors on which vendors put their articles;
• a routing conveyor to which articles on the inflow conveyors are guided and from which articles are sent to a next step;
• a monitoring means to monitor the number of articles on each inflow conveyor;
• and
• a guide control means to guide articles to the routing conveyor from an inflow conveyor to another in the order of the number of articles on the conveyor, based on the output from the monitoring means.

A shipment sorting system including:

• transferring unit cargoes containing articles to be shipped from an inflow area through a conveyor to a shipment sorting area;
• sorting cargoes according to different shipment requirements in the shipment sorting area;
• and
• transferring sorted unit cargoes to delivery carts for shipment,
• comprising a buffer storage line to store unit cargoes which have been transferred from the inflow area through the conveyor to the shipment sorting area.

An article sorting system comprising:

• a first conveyor to convey a tray containing articles to be sorted;
• a second conveyor branching off from the first conveyor, and a plurality of sorting lines containing sorting racks having a plurality of slots leading to containers into which articles are placed according to their sorting categories, and placed opposite to the second conveyor;
• a sorter to guide a tray conveyed through the first conveyor to one of the sorting lines;
• a reading means to read the identification information of a tray conveyed by the first conveyor;
• a memory means to store an article information table connecting the identification information of a tray with the information of the articles contained in that tray, and the arrangement pattern of the slots of each sorting line;
• and
• a sorter control means to determine an appropriate sorting line for a tray and control the sorter to guide the tray to the sorting line, after having referred to the identification information of the tray read by the reading means, and the article information table and the arrangement patterns of slots stored in the memory means.

An article sorting system comprising:

• a first conveyor to convey trays containing articles to be sorted;
• a second conveyor branching off from the first conveyor, and a plurality of sorting lines containing sorting racks having a plurality of slots leading to containers into which articles are placed according to their sorting categories, and placed opposite to the second conveyor;
• a sorter to guide a tray conveyed through the first conveyor to one of the sorting lines;
• a reading means to read the identification information of a tray conveyed by the first conveyor;
• a memory means to store an article information table connecting the identification information of a tray with the information of the articles contained in that tray, and the arrangement pattern of the slots of each sorting line;
• a sorter control means to determine an appropriate sorting line for a tray and control the sorter to guide the tray to the sorting line, after having referred to the identification information of the tray read by the reading means, and the article information table and the arrangement patterns of slots stored in the memory means;
• and
• a direction indicating means provided to each of the plural blocks introduced into a sorting rack so as to indicate by an arrow the No. of the nominated slot and its direction.