Article placement system

An article placement system for applying a plurality of articles to a substrate, each article being placed at a different location on said substrate, said system comprising:

• a base;
• a walking beam mounted to the base, said walking beam having an axis of bi-directional movement, and a dimension of length along said axis;
• a plurality of article transfer members mounted to said walking beam at axially spaced-apart locations from one another;
• conveyor means extending axially beneath said article transfer members for conveying substrates to positions beneath successive ones of said article transfer means;
• a plurality of article supply members, each having a respective delivery point where it provides an article to a respective one of said article transfer members;
• drive means axially bi-directionally moving said walking beam, and thereby all of the article transfer members simultaneously by a unit distance, between a respective delivery point and a respective deposit point and reversely;
• stepper means intermittently moving said conveyor means by an indexing distance, whereby to move all substrates simultaneously beneath successive deposit points;
• supply positioning means mounting each said article supply member to the base whereby its respective delivery point is axially and laterally adjustable;
• transfer positioning means mounting each said article transfer member to said walking beam for axial and lateral adjustment to meet the respective delivery point;
• whereby said stepper means intermittently operates to cause the conveyor means to move the substrates beneath successive deposit points, and the walking beam oscillates to move the article transfer means from the delivery point of their respective article supply member where they pick up an article, to their respective deposit point where they deposit it.