Article Rearranging Device and Article Storage Facility Including Same

An article rearranging device comprising:

• a receiving portion configured to receive articles, one or more articles at a time;
• a delivering portion configured to deliver articles, one or more articles at a time;
• an arranging section configured to transport articles received by the receiving portion to the delivering portion, and to rearrange an order of articles received by the receiving portion into a specified order;
• wherein the arranging section includes a plurality of collecting and transporting portions each of which is capable of collecting and transporting a plurality of articles such that the plurality of collecting and transporting portions are located one after another in series along a transport direction from the receiving portion to the delivering portion,
• wherein, with one of the plurality of collecting and transporting portions that is located most downstream, with respect to the transport direction, being designated as a last collecting portion, and with another of the plurality of collecting and transporting portions that is a next collecting and transporting portion that is located upstream of the last collecting portion being designated as an upstream collecting portion,
• each of the last collecting portion and the upstream collecting portion includes a plurality of collecting branch portions which extend in the transport direction and in parallel with each other,
• wherein the number of last collecting branch portions which are the collecting branch portions of the last collecting portion and the number of upstream collecting branch portions which are the collecting branch portions of the upstream collecting portion are identical to each other or different from each other,
• wherein a controller configured to control operations of the arranging section is configured to control operations of the arranging section such that a plurality of articles to be rearranged and to which the specified order is assigned, are caused to be distributed among, and collected in, a plurality of the upstream collecting branch portions, and are subsequently transported from the plurality of the upstream collecting branch portions to the plurality of the last collecting branch portions,
• wherein, when distributing and collecting the plurality of articles, that are being rearranged, among and in the plurality of the upstream collecting branch portions, the controller controls operations of the arranging section such that the articles being rearranged are classified into article groups of the same number of articles as the number of the last collecting branch portions, and such that, for each article group, elements of a subsequence representing the specified order assigned to a plurality of articles forming an article group are elements of a consecutive subsequence for the articles forming the article group, so that articles in one article group are distributed and collected before articles in any other article group, and
• wherein, when transporting the plurality of articles being rearranged, from the upstream collecting branch portions to the last collecting branch portions, the controller controls operations of the arranging section such that articles in an article group formed by the articles to which earlier positions in the specified order are assigned are distributed among the last collecting branch portions before articles in any other article group formed by articles to which later positions in the specified order are assigned, and such that plurality of articles that form any one given article group are distributed among, and collected in, the last collecting branch portions, one by one in accordance with the specified order.