US 8,997,440 B2 · Manually-assisted void-fill dunnage dispensing system and method

Abstract

A packaging system (100) includes a controller (102), an input device (104) in communication with the controller (102) that identifies one or more characteristics of the container, an illustration with indicia representing different degrees of fill for a container; and a manual input device (106) in communication with the controller (102) for inputting an estimated degree of fullness of the packing container having one or more articles to be packed correlated with the indicia in the illustration. The controller (102) provides an output signal indicating a quantity of dunnage to dispense to the container based on the input estimated degree of fullness and the one or more identified characteristics of the container. Then the controller can determine the amount of dunnage that needs to be provided to fill the remaining void in the container, and the controller can signal a dunnage dispenser (110) to dispense the determined amount of dunnage.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A void-fill packaging system comprising

a manual input device for indicating to the system an estimate of how full a container is,
a container input device to identify one or more characteristics of a packing container;
and
an illustration of different degrees of fill for a container;
and
an electronic controller that provides an output signal that indicates how much dunnage to dispense to the container based on the estimated fullness and one or more characteristics of the container;
where the manual input device includes a device for inputting an estimated degree of fullness of the packing container having one or more articles to be packed correlated with the illustration;
and where the controller is in communication with the container input device and the manual input device, and determines the quantity of dunnage to dispense to the container based on the input estimated degree of fullness and the input container identity.

5 more elements

A method for controlling an amount of dunnage to be dispensed to a packing container, comprising the steps of:

identifying one or more characteristics of a container where one or more articles are placed in the shipping container;
manually inputting an estimated degree of fullness for the container;
and
providing an output signal indicating a quantity of dunnage to dispense to the container based on the estimated degree of fullness and the one or more identified characteristics of the container;
where the manually inputting step includes selecting from about two to five discrete input options by positioning a body adjacent an illustration of an estimated degree of fullness so that the position of the body can be sensed, thereby indicating the selected input option corresponding to the illustration of the estimated degree of fullness of the container.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Manually-assisted void-fill dunnage dispensing system and method

Life of this patent

Manually-assisted void-fill dunnage dispensing system and method

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims11