CNC glass cutting line with dynamic continuous production control system

A glass product cutting line comprising:

• a computer controlled glass cutting table for cutting sheets of glass into cut glass workpieces;
• a feeding device for feeding glass sheets to the glass cutting table;
• a plurality of moveable cut glass workpiece holding harp racks, each harp rack having a plurality of slots receiving the cut glass workpieces;
• a sorting device for sorting the cut glass workpieces and moving the cut glass workpieces to the associated harp rack;
• and
• a dynamic cutting line control system including
• an optimizer coupled to the controller of the glass cutting table optimizing the glass workpiece layout on the individual sheets of glass, wherein the optimizer includes a biasing for favoring individual cut glass workpieces assigned to a leading harp rack, whereby the bias will tend to position and cut the glass workpieces assigned to the leading harp rack on leading sheets to completely fill the leading harp rack in a minimum time, and
• a harp rack removal accommodator coupled to the optimizer, wherein a leading harp rack is removed from the glass cutting line and the accommodator designates a new leading harp rack for the optimizer which dynamically adjusts the bias and associated cutting scheduling.

A method of dynamically controlling a glass product cutting line having a computer controlled glass cutting table cutting sheets of glass into cut glass workpieces and a plurality of cut glass workpiece holding harp racks, each harp rack having a plurality of slots receiving the cut glass workpieces, the method comprising the steps of:

• optimizing the glass workpiece layout on the individual sheets of glass, wherein the optimizing includes a biasing for favoring individual cut glass workpieces assigned to a leading harp rack, whereby the biasing will tend to position and cut the glass workpieces assigned to the leading harp rack on leading sheets to completely fill the leading harp rack in a minimum time;
• removing a leading harp rack from the glass cutting line when filled;
• and
• designating a new leading harp rack for the cutting table for dynamically adjusting the bias and subsequent cutting scheduling.