High capacity delivery with priority handling
AssigneeAquest Systems Corporation
InventorMichael D. Brain
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods are provided for transporting articles throughout a fabrication facility according to assigned priority levels. Systems of the present invention are directed to conveyor systems that may include parallel conveyors and nodes where articles can be switched between conveyors. Accordingly, high priority articles can be routed around traffic by switching between parallel conveyors and/or lower priority articles can be rerouted or buffered to make a chosen route for a high priority article less congested. Methods are directed to selecting the most appropriate route for an article amongst the various possible routing alternatives.
Claims20
A system for transporting articles comprising:
- a conveyor system including a plurality of conveyors arranged to transport articles between multiple destinations and including a plurality of nodes at which articles can be transferred between conveyors;
- and
- a computing system configured to select, based on a priority level assigned to an article, a route for the article through the conveyor system to a destination.
A method for routing through a conveyor system a first article having a priority level, the method comprising:
- determining for the first article a primary delivery route through the conveyor system to a destination;
- determining a second article that can be rerouted, the second article having a priority level lower than the priority level of the first article;
- estimating a delivery time to deliver the first article to the destination by conveying the first article along the primary delivery route in a scenario in which the second article is rerouted;
- and
- delivering the first article to the destination by conveying the first article along the primary delivery route.
A computer readable medium having stored thereupon computing instructions comprising:
- a code segment to determine for a first article a primary delivery route through a conveyor system to a destination;
- a code segment to determine a second article that can be rerouted or delayed, the second article having a priority level lower than the priority level of the first article;
- and
- a code segment to estimate a delivery time to deliver the first article to the destination by conveying the first article along the primary delivery route in a scenario in which the second article is rerouted or delayed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.