JP5549193B2 - Transport control method, transport control device, and computer program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for realizing pile sorting of steel materials for efficiently operating a yard provided to smoothly supply steel materials such as slabs and coils to the next process in a steel process. And computer programs.

  In the steelmaking process, for example, when transporting steel from the steelmaking process to the next rolling process, the steel is temporarily placed in a temporary storage place called a yard and then moved from the yard to the processing time of the next rolling process. It is carried out. An example of the layout of the yard is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 4, the yard is storage places 101 to 104 that are partitioned vertically and horizontally as a buffer area for supplying a steel material such as a slab discharged from the upstream process to the downstream process. The divisions in the vertical direction (crane 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B movable direction) are often referred to as “buildings”, and the horizontal divisions are referred to as “rows”. Indicate where the steel is to be transported by specifying the "row".

  Next, taking FIG. 4 as an example, the basic work flow in the yard is shown. First, the steel material carried out from the continuous casting machine 110 in the steel making process which is the previous process is transported to the yard by the receiving table X via the pillar 111, and is partitioned by a transport device such as the cranes 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B. It is transported to any of the storage places 101 to 104, and is piled up (the steel material may be transported by the high-speed cart 109). And the steel materials placed in piles in any of the storage areas 101 to 104 are placed on the delivery table Z again by the cranes 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B in accordance with the production schedule of the rolling process which is a subsequent process, and the rolling process It is conveyed to. Generally, in the yard, steel materials are placed in a piled state as described above. This is to effectively utilize the limited yard area. Naturally, when the steel materials are stacked in the yard (places 101 to 104), the steel materials need to be stacked from the top in the order of processing in the next process so that the steel materials can be easily supplied to the rolling process as the next process. Here, dividing a steel material into a plurality of peaks is called “mount sorting”.

  In this specification, the concept of “rolling unit” and “lot number” is defined as an example of a case where the next process is a rolling process as an index representing “next process processing order”. First, the “rolling unit” is a unit for distinguishing a rolling schedule for one roll, and rolling is performed in ascending order of this numerical value. Next, “lot No.” is a concept representing a more detailed rolling order in the same “rolling unit”, and rolling is performed in ascending order of this numerical value. The same “Lot No.” may be given to multiple steel materials. In that case, these multiple steel materials will be transferred to the next process in any order as long as the “Lot No.” is within the same range. It is assumed that there will be no problem even if paid out.

As described above, the mountain sorting work of steel is an extremely important work in terms of yard management, but there are many combinations of the methods, and the following requirements must be considered.
(1) The steel materials are stacked so that the order of stacking in the yard is the next process order from the top.
(2) In order to make effective use of the yard space, increase the number of steel materials stacked in one place as much as possible (that is, make the peak height as high as possible).
(3) The loading height should not be a restriction on crane movement.
(4) The difference between the size stacked below (the width and length of the steel material) and the size stacked above should not exceed a certain reference value so that the stacking shape does not become unstable. .
(5) In order to reduce the work load of the crane that transports steel materials, the number of temporarily placing the steel materials without temporarily transporting them to the final yard is reduced, and the number of times of steel materials transporting when configuring the target mountain shape is reduced. Reduce as much as possible.

  Conventionally, the steel pile sorting plan is based on the above (1) based on the information on the steel material flowing into the yard, the vacancy information on the yard, and the information on the steel material flowing out from the yard. This was done by trial and error in consideration of the condition of 5). However, in such a manual plan, when the plan target is a long time, the amount of information becomes enormous, and it is often impossible to create an “appropriate” mountain sorting plan. In addition, since skill is required to create a plan, individual differences occur in the created plan, and there is a problem that the yard cannot be effectively used depending on the plan creator. Another problem is that it takes a long time to train skilled personnel. By the way, the “appropriate” mountain sorting plan here is to increase the mountain height as much as possible under the constraints of (1), (3) and (4) ((2)), and to transport steel for that purpose. To reduce the number of times as much as possible ((5)).

Supplementing (2), when storing steel materials in a heat-retaining trolley or the like in order to prevent a temperature drop of the steel material in the steel yard, a high mountain is formed to effectively utilize the heat-retaining trolley. The amount of temperature drop can be reduced. If the next process is a heating furnace, the temperature of the steel material is directly linked to the fuel cost, so creating a high mountain greatly contributes not only to the effective use of the yard but also to cost reduction.
As for (5), in the case of ridges in the yard, when the steel material arrives from the previous process, the lot number in the next process, that is, the delivery order to the next process is determined. When the steel material arrives from the previous process, the payout order to the next process is not determined, and the payout order to the next process may be determined while staying in the yard. In the former case, hills are built according to the arrival order, and therefore the transport order for that depends on the arrival order. Therefore, in this case, since the number of times of transporting the steel material substantially depends only on the final mountain shape, it is not necessary to consider the transport order.

On the other hand, in the latter case, since all the steel materials to be sorted are piled up from the state in the yard, any steel material can be handled. At this time, depending on the order of the steel materials, there are cases where the workload is different even if the same mountain sorting is performed. Therefore, in this case, making the transfer order of the target steel materials appropriate leads to a reduction in the work load, so that the transfer order itself becomes a decision variable and becomes a larger problem.
In the present invention, the former case, that is, the case where “the payout order to the next process is determined when the steel material arrives from the previous process”.

  Several methods have been developed for storage management methods that require these requirements. The technology described in Patent Document 1 is a basic technique in which products are stacked in order so that piles are not generated at the time of payout using an information file relating to piles. Also in Patent Document 2, by making a large lot of articles as a single pile, it is possible to prevent a situation in which a large lot of articles is stacked on a small lot of articles, thereby reducing the replacement work at the time of shipment. Basic storage management methods have been proposed.

  Moreover, in patent document 3, even when the plan target steel plate number became enormous, it aimed at creating the plan of the optimal stacking order which satisfy | fills the conditions at the time of loading in a yard automatically in a comparatively short time. Steel plate pile planning methods have been proposed. This technology groups steel sheets based on conditions such as the size of steel sheets, rolling order, etc., creates multiple array patterns with different order of each group, and based on the pile-mounting judgment conditions from the first group of the array patterns. A pile simulation is performed, the number of piles is obtained for each arrangement pattern based on the result, the arrangement pattern having the smallest number of piles is selected, and a predetermined number of arrangements are arranged in the order of few piles from the created arrangement pattern. Select a pattern, rearrange the group arrangement order between the selected arrangement patterns to create multiple new arrangement patterns, and similarly create the number of piles from this arrangement pattern and the arrangement pattern with the smallest number of piles Is a procedure for selecting the smallest arrangement pattern.

Furthermore, in Patent Document 4, which slab is assigned to which future mountain, what transportation lot is divided into slabs, and in what order the transportation lots determined in the lot dividing step are generated, It has been proposed to generate an operation instruction of a handling device for executing the generation order of transport lots, and to determine where an obstacle slab for digging out a target slab is to be evacuated.
Moreover, in patent document 5, it considers the steel materials used as a mountain sort object as a set, First, the steel material subset which is a subset of the set is produced | generated, and it is a subset which satisfy | fills a stacking constraint among the steel material subsets then. There is disclosed a method for realizing mountain sorting by extracting a feasible mountain and then calculating an optimal solution as a subset of the feasible mountain that is optimal for storage management.

JP-A-6-179525 JP 2000-226123 A JP-A-11-255336 JP 2007-84201 A JP 2008-260630 A

  However, the inventions described in Patent Documents 1 and 2 are inventions that hill up based on a certain rule, both of which may be appropriate methods under certain specific conditions, but are methods that can be used in any case. Absent. On the other hand, Patent Documents 3, 4, and 5 use mathematical programming methods, do not particularly limit the target conditions, and present an algorithm for finding a solution (corresponding to an appropriate division in this case) by a rational method. Yes. However, the method used when obtaining a solution in Patent Documents 3 and 4 is a so-called heuristic solution (a heuristic solution). Specifically, Patent Document 3 uses a genetic algorithm, In Patent Document 4, a method called tab search is used. These methods are based on the idea that if a good approximate optimal solution can be obtained in a relatively short time, it will be satisfied if the exact optimal solution is given, and there is no guarantee for the optimality of the obtained solution. There is a problem that the error from the optimal solution is not clear.

On the other hand, Patent Document 5 proposes a method for formulating a mountain sorting problem as a set partitioning problem and deriving a strict optimal solution using a solution of the 1-0 planning problem. However, the scale of problems that can be solved by this method is not necessarily sufficient for the following reasons, and it cannot be optimized at one time depending on the situation. For this reason, it may be necessary to divide the target into a plurality of groups and perform optimization on each of them, so that partial optimization is unavoidable.
First, the general problem scale required for this mountain sorting problem will be described. Since the mountain sorting is performed for each rolling unit (corresponding to a rolling schedule), the number of steel materials targeted for mountain sorting is about 120 to 180. Moreover, since the conveyance lot which is a unit conveyed at one time with a conveyance apparatus (mainly a crane) is usually about 2-5 sheets, when it is set to an average of 3 sheets / conveyance lot, the total number of conveyance lots will be about 40-60. Since this is separated into a plurality of buildings, when steel materials are distributed in two buildings, the problem scale is about 20 to 30 transport lots per building. When the balance of the building is poor, there are cases where the number of transport lots is about 40, and an optimization method that can cope with this scale at the maximum is required.

On the other hand, the scale of problems that can be solved by the method described in Patent Document 5 is about 15 to 20 at most. In the solution according to Patent Document 5, a solution is obtained by formulating it as a “set division problem” in which the entire set of target transport lots is divided into mountains (subsets). Therefore, if the number of elements in the entire set of transport lots is N, the number of subsets is 2 ^N. In the solution described in Patent Document 5, the number 2 ^N of the subsets directly corresponds to the number of decision variables. Therefore, for example, 2 ¹⁵ = 32768, 2 ²⁰ ≈10 ⁶ , the number of decision variables increases rapidly as the number of elements N increases. For this reason, in the case where N = 20, the solution described in Patent Document 5 is extremely difficult. Therefore, in the method according to Patent Document 5, when the number of elements N is large, such as when the number of target transport lots exceeds 20, the problem is divided into a plurality of sub-problems, and a solution for each sub-problem is solved. At the same time, the solution to the original problem must be taken. With this method, partial optimization is performed on the original problem, so there is no guarantee that the entire problem is optimal.

  Further, in the method described in Patent Document 5, since the mountain sorting is solved as set partitioning, there is an implicit assumption that the arrangement order (that is, product order) in the divided subset is uniquely determined. May not always be legitimate. This point will be described. In the method described in Patent Document 5, it is assumed that the product order of a subset of a plurality of steel materials (this corresponds to a mountain) is uniquely determined. This is determined by the constraint that the product order must be stacked in the order of paying out to the next process as seen from above. However, this payout order may not always be determined by a rigid, and there are rare cases where there are a plurality of steel materials having the same lot number (the number corresponding to the rolling order in the next rolling process). is not. In such a case, steel materials with the same lot number may be stacked in any order as long as there is no problem with size restrictions. Good mountain sorting is desired. That is, the method described in Patent Document 5 has a problem that the degree of freedom that should be taken into consideration, that is, it is possible to change the order of products between a plurality of steel materials having the same lot number is not considered.

In view of the problems of the prior art as described above, in the steel pile sorting problem in the yard, the development of a solution algorithm that can handle up to about 30 transport lots (= elements) that can calculate a strict optimum solution Is an important issue.
The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and in the mountain sorting problem of steel materials in the yard, while satisfying the constraint condition regarding mountain standing, an index for maximizing the mountain height and an index for minimizing the number of conveyance times, It is intended to provide a yard storage management technology that optimizes the mountain sorting by solving the optimization problem formulated so that the balance can be arbitrarily adjusted and calculating the mountain sorting. In other words, the present invention does not rely on the heuristic solution and does not divide the target even if the number of target transport lots (= elements) exceeds about 30, and is acceptable for this problem solution. The purpose is to realize a mountain sorting plan that derives a strict optimal solution in time. It should be noted that the allowable calculation time for this problem is considered to be at most several minutes (within 10 minutes) considering that it is necessary to reschedule appropriately in response to the changing yard situation.

Therefore, in order to solve the above problem, it is necessary to develop a solution that can calculate a strict optimum solution within an allowable time for a mountain sorting problem in which the number of target transport lots (= elements) is at least about 30. is there.
In the present invention, in order to realize this, an attempt was made to greatly reduce the number of decision variables by a completely different formulation method from Patent Document 5 proposed as the only exact optimal solution in this field.

That is, in the present invention, the mountain sorting problem is formulated as a many-to-one assignment problem in which a plurality of transport lots are allocated to the appropriate mountain (optimum mountain = payout mountain). Normally, when formulating such a problem as an assignment problem, the assigned lot (in this case, the delivery lot) and the assignment destination (in this case, the number of steps in the mountain), such as assigning the delivery lot to which level of a certain mountain It is a general method to carry out such that the correspondence relationship with (1) becomes one-to-one. However, in the present invention, the identification parameter “how many steps” is eliminated, and the correspondence between the assigned item (in this case, the transport lot) and the assignment destination (in this case, the mountain) is many-to-one (a plurality of transport lots are the same). The aim was to significantly reduce the variables. The positional relationship between two transport lots assigned to the same mountain in terms of how the product order (product level) can be determined without the “how many levels” identification parameter. The decision variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] (stacking position related variable) that defines is introduced and dealt with.

In other words, the stacking position relation variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] is set so that the transport lot i ₁ and the transport lot i ₂ are in the mountain m so that the transport lot i ₁ is down and the transport lot i ₂ is up. By defining it as a 0-1 variable that is “1” when assigned and “0” otherwise, the positional relationship of the transport lots assigned to the same mountain can be identified. For example, as a result of optimal calculation, for m = 1, y [4] [1] [1] = 1, y [1] [3] [1] = 1, y [1] [7] [1 ] = 1, y [4] [3] [1] = 1, y [4] [7] [1] = 1, y [7] [3] [1] = 1 From the definition of [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m], it can be seen that the transport lots are stacked in the order of (4,1,7,3) from the bottom.

Then, according to the present invention, as compared with the method described in Patent Document 5, how much the number of decision variables can be reduced will be considered. Assuming that the number of target transport lots is N, in the method described in Patent Document 5, the number of elements N is divided into subsets as described above, so the number of decision variables is on the order of 2 ^N. . On the other hand, in the present invention, the number of transport lots i ₁ and i ₂ is N, and the number of peaks m is also the maximum N. Therefore, the stacking position relation variable y [i ₁ ] [ The number of i ₂ ] [m] is on the order of N ³ . As the number N of transport lots increases, the difference between the present invention and the method described in Patent Document 5 increases. Considering the range of N = 20 to 30 required in this problem, when N = 20, 2 ^N ≈ 10 ⁶ , N ³ = 8000 <10 ⁴ , and when N = 30, 2 ^N ≈10 ⁹ and N ³ = 27000 <10 ⁵ . Therefore, it can be seen that the number of decision variables can be dramatically reduced by the formulation according to the present invention. Although details will be described later, the mountain sorting variable x [i] [0] is a 0-1 variable that is “1” when the transport lot i is assigned to the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m, and “0” otherwise. The order of m] is the order of N ² for the same reason as y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m]. As described above, the order of the mountain sorting variable x [i] [m] is one order lower than N ³ which is the order of y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m], and therefore can be ignored as the entire order.
In the present invention, this efficient formulation enables heuristic solution even when there are about 30 transport lots (= elements) in a steel pile sorting problem in a yard, which has been considered difficult in the past. It is possible to realize a mountain sorting plan that derives a rigorous optimal solution within an acceptable time required for the problem solving method without depending on the target and dividing the object.

That is, the conveyance control method of the present invention uses a conveyance device to pile up steel materials carried into a yard in which steel materials are arranged as an inter-process place in the steel process and to pay out to a subsequent process of the yard. A conveyance control method for executing conveyance control for creation by a computer , which is information on a plurality of steel materials for which the payout hill is to be created, and includes at least a steel material number, a reception order of steel materials to the yard, or a reception The input information capturing step for capturing the time, the steel material delivery order or time for the subsequent process, the steel material information including the steel dimensions, and the information indicating the state of the yard, and the input information capturing step. based on steel information, allocates a mountain sorting to assign each of the plurality of steel into one of a plurality of payout mountains, the steel material該払Deyama An objective constraint that satisfies the allocation constraint equation, which is a time constraint, and the product shape constraint equation, which is a constraint relating to the stacking shape of the payout mountain, and minimizes the number of payout mountains A mountain sorting determination step determined in the above manner, a mountain sorting determined by the mountain sorting determination step, and a transport instruction step for instructing the transporting device to transport the mountain according to the state of the yard. The mountain sorting determination step includes a decision variable setting step for setting a decision variable which is a variable to be determined when determining the mountain sorting, and a plurality of steel materials to be used for creating the payout mountain. An allocation constraint formula setting step for setting the allocation constraint formula that is formulated as a relationship with respect to the decision variable, and a constraint on the stacking form of the payout mountain, The product form constraint formula setting step for setting the product form constraint formula defined as a relationship with respect to the determination variable, and the smaller the number of payout mountains created by the mountain sorting, and the creation of the payout mountain The objective function setting step for setting the objective function, which is a function that takes a smaller value as the number of times required for the transfer work, satisfies the allocation constraint equation and the product form constraint equation, and the objective function is minimized. And an optimum solution calculating step for calculating an optimum solution of the decision variable, and when assigning any two of the steel materials to the payout pile as the decision variable set in the decision variable setting step A stacking position relationship variable representing the vertical relationship of the stacking position, a payout pile existence determination variable indicating the presence or absence of the payout pile, and a mountain sorting variable indicating whether or not the steel material is assigned to the payout pile. The assignment constraint equation is defined as a relationship with respect to the mountain sorting variable, and as a relationship between the unique constraint representing that any of the steel materials is assigned to one of the payout piles, and the mountain sorting variable Including the definition constraint of the stacking position relation variable that defines the stacking position relation variable, wherein the stacking form constraint equation is defined as a relationship among the stacking position relation variable, the payout mountain existence determination variable, and the pile sorting variable, and is identical Including restrictions on the dimensions between the steel members stacked above and below the payout hill, restrictions on the payout order between the steel materials stacked above and below the same payout pile, and restrictions on the height of the payout pile, the objective function is a number calculated from the product order in the order of arrival and the dispensing mountain to yard any two of the steel, the middle of the temporary as it is transported to the dispensing mountain Characterized in that it is a function that evaluates a small number of the transport task lower the number.
Moreover, the conveyance control device of the present invention uses a conveyance device to pile up steel materials carried into a yard in which steel materials are arranged as an inter-process place in the steel process, and to pay out to a subsequent process of the yard. It is a conveyance control device for creating, which is information about a plurality of steel materials for which the payout hill is created, and at least the steel material number, the order of receiving or receiving the steel materials into the yard, and the subsequent process Based on the steel material information fetched by the input information fetching means, the input information fetching means for fetching the steel material information including the steel material payout order or the payout time, and the steel material dimensions, and the information indicating the state of the yard, mountain sorting allocating a plurality of steel into one of a plurality of payout mountains, and allocation constraints are constraints when allocating steel material該払Deyama, product of該払Deyama A pile sorting determination means for satisfying the product form constraint equation, which is a constraint relating to the above, and determining so as to minimize an objective function for the purpose of reducing the number of payout peaks, and the pile sorting determination means Transporting instruction means for instructing the transport equipment to perform transport work so as to set up the mountain according to the determined yard sorting, and the hill sorting determination means is configured to determine the mountain sorting. A decision variable setting means for setting a decision variable which is a variable to be determined, and a constraint for assigning a plurality of steel materials to be used for creating the payout hill to the payout hill, and is formulated as a relationship with respect to the decision variable An allocation constraint formula setting means for setting the allocation constraint formula and a product for setting the product configuration constraint formula defined as a relationship with respect to the decision variable The objective function, which is a function that takes a smaller value as the number of the payout hills created by the mountain sorting and the number of transfer operations required to create the payout hills becomes smaller An objective function setting means for setting; and an optimal solution calculating means for calculating an optimal solution of the decision variable that satisfies the allocation constraint equation and the product form constraint equation and minimizes the objective function; And the determination variable set by the determination variable setting means includes a stacking position relation variable representing a vertical relationship between stacking positions when assigning any two of the steel materials to the payout pile, and the presence or absence of the payout pile. A payout pile existence determination variable that represents and a mountain sorting variable that represents whether or not the steel material is assigned to the payout pile, and the assignment constraint equation is defined as a relationship with respect to the pile sorting variable, Steel Including a unique constraint representing assignment to one of the payout hills, and a definition constraint of a stacking position relation variable defining the stacking position relation variable as a relation with the pile sorting variable, Is defined as the relationship between the stacking position relation variable, the payout pile existence determination variable, and the pile sorting variable, and the constraints on the dimensions between the steel materials stacked above and below the same payout pile, and the top of the same payout pile The objective function includes the order of arrival of any two of the steel materials at the yard and the product at the payout hill , including constraints on the payout order between the steel materials stacked below and constraints on the height of the payout hill. The number of times calculated from the order is a function that evaluates that the smaller the number of temporary placements in the middle of transportation to the payout hill, the smaller the number of transportation operations.
Further, the present invention provides a computer program that causes a computer to execute each step of the transport control method.

  According to the present invention, in the steel mountain sorting method for efficiently operating the yard operation, the balance between the index for maximizing the mountain height and the index for minimizing the number of conveyances is satisfied, satisfying the constraint condition regarding mountain setting. It is possible to provide a yard storage management technique for optimizing the mountain sorting by solving the optimization problem formulated so as to be arbitrarily adjusted and calculating the mountain sorting. Furthermore, even when the number of target transport lots (= elements) exceeds about 30, it does not rely on the heuristic solution and does not divide the target, and it is strictly optimal within the allowable time required for this problem solution. A mountain sorting plan for deriving a solution can be realized.

It is a figure which shows an example of a structure of the conveyance control apparatus by embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows an example of each step of the conveyance control method by embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the detailed step of the mountain sorting determination step of FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the general layout of a yard. It is a figure showing the steel material information used as the mountain sorting object in the Example of this invention. It is a figure showing the steel material information following FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of a plan which performed the mountain sorting by patent document 5 as a comparative example of the Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a plan following FIG. 6-1. It is a figure which shows the example of a plan which performed mountain sorting by a present Example. It is a figure which shows the example of a plan following FIG.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
An example of the configuration of the transfer control device in the steel process of the present embodiment is shown in FIG. An example of each step of the transport control method executed using the transport control apparatus is shown in FIGS. The hardware of the transfer control device can be realized by using a computer system (for example, a personal computer) provided with, for example, a CPU, ROM, RAM, HDD, communication interface, user interface, and the like.
In addition, although the conveyance apparatus which contributes to the conveyance operation in the present invention can be applied to the present invention regardless of whether it is singular or plural, for the sake of easy explanation, a case where there is one conveyance apparatus will be described as an example. Give an explanation.

(1) Input information capturing means 3 (input information capturing step S1)
First, from the steel material management computer 1 which is a database related to all steel materials such as business computers, the following information regarding the steel materials to be sorted is received by the input information fetching means 3 of the transport control device 2. That is, the input information fetching means 3 includes the steel material number of the steel materials to be sorted, the acceptance order or acceptance time of the steel material in the yard, the delivery order or delivery time of the steel material to the next process, the steel material dimensions of the steel material, An adjustment coefficient for balancing the objective function (described in “objective function setting means 8” described later), and a yard state (a “conveying work instruction generating means 11” described later) indicating the state of the mountain at each yard location. Receive explanation).

And when a conveyance apparatus can convey two or more steel materials at once, the input information taking-in means 3 makes the steel material number of the said steel materials, the yard of the said steel materials with respect to the conveyance lot information generation means 4 demonstrated below. The order of acceptance or time of receipt, the order of delivery or delivery time of the steel material to the next process, and the steel material dimensions of the steel material are output.
On the other hand, when the transport device can transport only one steel material at a time, the input information fetching means 3 sends the steel material number of the steel material and the order of acceptance to the yard of the steel material to the decision variable setting means 5 described below. Alternatively, the acceptance time is output. Further, the input information fetching means 3 gives a steel material number of the steel material, the order of acceptance or acceptance time of the steel material to the yard, and the next process of the steel material, with respect to the stacking shape constraint equation setting means 7 described below. The payout order or payout time and the steel dimensions of the steel are output.

Further, the input information fetching means 3 outputs the steel material number of the steel material, the order or time of acceptance of the steel material, the adjustment coefficient, and the steel material dimension of the steel material to the objective function setting means 8 described below. Moreover, the input information taking-in means 3 outputs the steel material placement position and the yard state in the yard to the conveyance work instruction generating means 11 which will be described below.
The input information fetching means 3 uses, for example, a program stored in a ROM or the like by the CPU of the transport control device 2 as a work area while the communication interface of the transport control device 2 communicates with the steel material management computer 1 It can be realized by executing it.

(2) Transport lot information generation means 4 (Transport lot information generation step S2)
In the conveyance lot information generation means 4 (conveyance lot information generation step S2), when the conveyance device can convey two or more steel materials at a time, a group of steel materials when receiving the target steel materials into the yard, that is, once The unit (conveyance lot) that can be transported by the crane is determined. Subsequent mountain sorting is considered with this transport lot as the minimum unit. When a plurality of steel materials are piled up together and arrive at the yard when they are carried into the yard from the previous process (for example, when loaded in a state piled up by a freight car or a trailer from the previous process. Hereinafter, the division of the transport lot (referred to as Motoyama) is performed based on the following rules (i) and (ii), for example.
(I) Check in order from the top steel of Motoyama toward the bottom, making the unit from the weight and size to the place where the crane can grasp, and perform the same operation from the next steel of the final steel of the unit. Repeatedly divide Motoyama's steel into multiple transport lots. The range which can be grasped here means a limit range of weight and thickness that can be hung by the crane.
(Ii) As an exception process of (i) above, even if the steel is in a range that can be grasped by the crane, the rolling unit in the next process is different between the steel and the steel on the steel, and it is necessary to separate the peaks. Or, even if the rolling unit in the next process is the same as that of the steel material on the steel material, if the lot numbers of the steel material and the steel material on the steel material are in the reverse order of the delivery of those steel materials, Divide transport lots between steel materials.

As described above, when the division of Motoyama into transportation lots (conveyance units) that can be grasped by the crane is completed, the transportation lot information generating means 4 prepares the following processing for each transportation lot as follows ( Items i) to (viii) are obtained. These are referred to as “conveyance lot information”, and this “conveyance lot information” is output to the decision variable setting means 5, the product form constraint expression setting means 7 and the conveyance work instruction generating means 11 described later.
(I) Steel material lot list: List of steel material numbers included in the transport lot (ii) Maximum length: The maximum steel material length of steel materials included in the transport lot (iii) Minimum length: In the transport lot Among steel materials included, the minimum steel material length (iv) Maximum width: Among the steel materials included in the transport lot, the maximum steel material width (v) Minimum width: The minimum steel material among the steel materials included in the transport lot Width (vi) Latest delivery order: The latest delivery order of steel materials included in the transport lot (vii) Earlier delivery order: The earliest delivery order of steel materials included in the transport lot (viii) Rolling unit: Unit for distinguishing rolling schedule for one roll Note that, when the transport device can transport only one steel material at a time, each transport lot is composed of one steel material.
The transport lot information generating unit 4 can be realized, for example, by executing a program stored in the ROM or the like by the CPU of the transport control apparatus 2 using the RAM as a work area.

(3) Decision variable setting means 5 (decision variable setting step S3-1)
Next, when the conveying device can convey only one steel material at a time, the decision variable setting means 5 receives the steel material number of the steel material and the order of acceptance or acceptance of the steel material from the input information fetching means 3. Get time information. On the other hand, when the transport device can transport two or more steel materials at a time, the decision variable setting unit 5 acquires transport lot information from the transport lot information generating unit 4. And the decision variable setting means 5 determines the decision variable used as a variable by the optimization calculation mentioned later as follows.

(I) x [i] [m]: Mountain sorting variable The mountain sorting variable x [i] [m] is “1” when the transport lot i is assigned to the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m, and “ It is a 0-1 variable that becomes “0”. The decision variable setting means 5 constitutes a payout mountain (optimum mountain) by the optimum solution of the mountain sorting variable x [i] [m]. For example, for m = 1, variables for which the optimal solution x _opt [i] [m] = 1 is x _opt [1] [1] = 1, x _opt [3] [1] = 1, x _opt [ 7] Assuming that there are three variables [1] = 1, the optimum mountain corresponding to m = 1 is composed of a conveyance lot 1, a conveyance lot 3, and a conveyance lot 7.

(Ii) y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m]: Stacking position related variable Stacking position related variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] indicates that transport lot i ₁ is lower and transport lot i ₂ is It is a 0-1 variable that is “1” when the transport lot i ₁ and the transport lot i ₂ are assigned to the mountain m, and “0” otherwise. In the present embodiment, this decision variable plays the most essential role.

(Iii) δ [m]: Optimal mountain (paid mountain) existence determination variable Optimal mountain existence determination variable δ [m] includes the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m. This is a 0-1 variable that is “1” if it does not exist and “0” if it does not exist.
The decision variable setting means 5 can be realized, for example, by the CPU of the transport control device 2 executing a program stored in a ROM or the like using the RAM as a work area.

(4) Allocation constraint equation setting means 6 (allocation constraint equation setting step S3-2)
Subsequently, the allocation constraint equation setting unit 6 defines “determining variables (x [i] [m], y for determining whether or not to allocate the delivery lot i to the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m” defined by the determination variable setting unit 5). [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m])) to satisfy the following basic conditions (associated with the definition of variables).
(I) Unique restriction of transportation lot i This restriction is a restriction that only one delivery lot (optimum mountain) m must be assigned to any transportation lot i. This is a basic restriction that a plurality of payout mountains (optimum mountains) m cannot be assigned to a lot. This constraint is set as (Equation 1-1).

(Ii) Constraints for defining the stacking position related variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] This constraint defines the stacking position related variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] and the mountain sorting variable x [i ] [m] is a constraint expression for definition. In other words, the stacking positional relationship variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] is such that the transport lot i ₁ is at the bottom of the delivery mountain (optimum mountain) m and the transport lot i ₂ is at the top. Since the 0-1 variable is “1” when i ₁ and transport lot i ₂ are assigned, and “0” otherwise, both the transport lot i ₁ and the transport lot i ₂ are the same payout mountain (optimum mountain). It is necessary to indicate whether it is assigned to m. This can be expressed using the mountain sorting variable x [i] [m]. When x [i] [m] is used, y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] only when x [i ₁ ] [m] = 1 and x [i ₂ ] [m] = 1 Or y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] is “1”, otherwise y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] and y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [ m] is all “0”. That is, “x [i ₁ ] [m] = 1 and x [i ₂ ] [m] = 1” and “y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] Using the fact that [m] = 1 ”is equivalent, it is attempted to express the stacking position relation variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] by the mountain sorting variable x [i] [m].

First, the proposition “x [i ₁ ] [m] = 1 and x [i ₂ ] [m] = 1 → y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [ m] = 1 ”can be expressed as (Equation 2-1).
x [i ₁ ] [m] + x [i ₂ ] [m] −1 ≦ y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] (Formula 2- 1)
Also, the reverse proposition “y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] = 1 → x [i ₁ ] [m] = 1 and x [ “i ₂ ] [m] = 1” is difficult to handle as it is, so that x [i ₁ ] [m] = 0 or x [i ₂ ] [m] = 0 → y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] = 0 ”can be expressed as in (Equation 2-2).
x [i ₁ ] [m] + x [i ₂ ] [m] ≧ 2 × (y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m]) (formula 2-2)

From the above definition, the pile position relation variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] can be completely determined by the value of the load position relation variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m]. This is the most important variable in the formulation of this embodiment. On the other hand, the mountain sorting variable x [i] [m] can be regarded as an auxiliary variable introduced to define the stacking position relation variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m].
The allocation constraint formula setting means 6 can be realized, for example, by executing a program stored in the ROM or the like by the CPU of the transport control device 2 using the RAM as a work area.

(5) Product form constraint equation setting means 7 (Product shape constraint equation setting step S3-3)
The product form constraint equation setting means 7 should satisfy the decision variables (x [i] [m], y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m], δ [m]) defined by the decision variable setting means 5. The following constraint formula regarding the stacking form is set based on the “transport lot information” from the transport lot information generating means 4 when the transport device can transport two or more steel materials at a time. When the conveying device can convey only one steel material at a time, “the order of accepting or accepting steel materials from the previous process” from the input information fetching means 3, “the order of delivering or delivering the steel materials to the next process”, And based on "steel dimensions". Here, the stacked form refers to the number of steel materials stacked in a mountain and the stacking relationship of each steel material.

(I) Discharge mountain (optimum mountain) stacking constraint If the load position related variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] = 1, the transport lot i ₁ and the transport lot i ₂ are set to the same payout m. As a result, the transport lot i ₁ is stacked below the transport lot i ₂ . When steel materials are piled up in the yard as described above, there are the following product restrictions so that the piled-up state does not become an unstable pyramid state.
・ Length constraint: Lower steel length-Upper steel length ≤ L (Reference value: In some cases, negative value)
・ Width constraint: Lower steel material width-Upper steel material width ≤ W (Reference value: In some cases, negative)
-Height constraint: Total product height ≤ H (reference value), or total product number ≤ P (reference value)
Among the above constraints, the length constraint and the width constraint can be determined between the two transport lots i ₁ and i _{2 that} are in a vertical relationship in the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m. In addition, at the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m, in order to perform payout smoothly separately from the loading form, it is necessary that the younger transport lots in the payout order are stacked higher. Therefore, the restriction relating to the payout can be determined between the two transport lots i ₁ and i _{2 in} the same manner as the restriction relating to the stacked form. That is, the stacking positional relationship between any two transport lots i ₁ and i ₂ can be classified into the following four cases.
Case 1: transport lot i ₁ must be under transport lot i ₂ Case 2: transport lot i ₁ must be above transport lot i ₂ Case 3: transport with transport lot i ₁ Case where the vertical relationship with lot i ₂ is not restricted Case 4: Case where transfer lot i ₁ and transfer lot i ₂ cannot be in the same mountain

The stacking form constraint formula setting means 7 sets a constraint formula for any two transport lots i ₁ and i _{2 according} to which of the above four cases the relationship is as follows. Incidentally, case 4, for example, the size, although the transport lot i ₁ must be below the conveying lot i _2, the dispensing order, conveying lot i ₁ must be at top of the transport lot i ₂ Case It occurs in such as.

If the stacking position relationship between the transport lots i ₁ and i ₂ is Case 1, the transport lot i ₁ must be below the transport lot i ₂ , so the transport lot i ₂ is the lower stage of the transport lot i _1. The restriction of (Equation 3-1) is imposed on any payout mountain (optimum mountain) m (m = 1,..., N) so as to prohibit the stacking position arrangement.
y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] = 0 (Formula 3-1)
In addition, when the stacking positional relationship between the transport lots i ₁ and i ₂ is Case 2, the transport lot i ₁ must be above the transport lot i ₂ , so the transport lot i ₁ is the lower stage of the transport lot i ₂ . The restriction of (Equation 3-2) is imposed on any payout mountain (optimum mountain) m (m = 1,..., N) so as to prohibit the stacking position arrangement.
y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] = 0 (Formula 3-2)
Further, in the case of the case 3 where the stacking positional relationship between the transport lots i ₁ and i ₂ is, no restriction is necessary.
In addition, when the stacking position relationship between the transfer lots i ₁ and i ₂ is Case 4, the transfer lot i ₁ and the transfer lot i ₂ cannot be placed on the same payout mountain (optimum mountain) m. The restriction of (Equation 3-3) is imposed on the mountain (optimum mountain) m (m = 1,..., N).
y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] + y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] = 0 (Formula 3-3)
Alternatively, the constraint of (Equation 3-4) may be imposed instead of (Equation 3-3).
y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] = 0, y [i ₂ ] [i ₁ ] [m] = 0 (Equation 3-4)

  The height constraint can be constrained by setting the total product height constraint as (Equation 4-1) and the total product number constraint as (Equation 4-2).

  The stacking shape constraint equation setting means 7 can be realized, for example, by executing a program stored in the ROM or the like by the CPU of the transport control device 2 using the RAM as a work area.

(6) Objective function setting means 8 (objective function setting step S3-4)
Now that the setting of the constraint equation has been completed, the objective function is set by the objective function setting means 8. The objective functions here are two functions: an objective function for increasing the mountain height and an objective function for reducing the number of conveyances. The setting method of each function is shown below.
(I) Objective function to increase the mountain height Increasing the mountain height is synonymous with reducing the number of mountains, so the objective function to achieve this purpose is the number of mountains as shown in (Equation 5-1). The sum may be set as the objective function J ₁ .

(Ii) Objective function for reducing the number of times of conveyance The number of times of conveyance necessary for creating the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m is at least the number of conveyance lots. The number of transfers required to create the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m is larger than the number of transfer lots. The steel material is transferred from the yard entrance (for example, reception table X) to the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m. In this case, the steel material cannot be directly conveyed and it is necessary to temporarily place it. Therefore, the number of conveyances is determined by how many “temporary placements” are required when creating the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m. For this reason, the objective function for evaluating the number of conveyances may be obtained by counting the “temporary placement occurrence number”. This “temporary placement” occurs when the acceptance order and the product order of the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m are different. In other words, if the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m is not stacked in the order of acceptance, temporary placement occurs, and this number of times reaches all m in order of the transport lots i ₂ and i _1. The stacking position related variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] (the variable that is set to “1” when the transport lots i ₁ and i ₂ are stacked in this order on the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m). Can be counted.
Therefore, as shown in (Equation 5-2), for any (i ₁ , i ₂ ) pair that arrives in the order of the transport lots i ₂ and i ₁ , the stacking position related variable y [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [ m] may be set as the objective function J ₂ .

(Iii) Objective function that balances both The adjustment coefficient for balancing the objective function obtained from the input information fetching means 3 is used to adjust the balance between maximizing the peak height and minimizing the number of conveyances. The objective function J may be set as shown in (Equation 5-3) using “Weight (weight coefficient)”.
J = J ₁ + Weight · J ₂ (Formula 5-3)
The adjustment coefficient Weight may be multiplied by the objective variable J ₁ instead of the objective variable J ₂ according to the contents.
The objective function setting unit 8 can be realized, for example, by the CPU of the transport control device 2 executing a program stored in the ROM or the like using the RAM as a work area.

(7) Optimal solution calculating means 9 (optimal solution calculating step S3-5)
Since the processing up to this point is ready for the optimization calculation, the objective function setting means is used under the conditions of the constraint expressions set by the allocation constraint expression setting means 6 and the product form constraint expression setting means 7. The optimal values of x _opt [i] [m], y _opt [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m], and δ _opt [m], which are decision variables that minimize the objective function set in step 8 The optimal solution calculation means 9 calculates the optimal solution). Here, in calculating the optimal solution, for example, a 0-1 integer programming problem solver can be used. As a result, an exact solution can be calculated.
Further, the decision variable setting means 5 (decision variable setting step S3-1), the allocation constraint expression setting means 6 (allocation constraint expression setting step S3-2), and the product figure constraint expression setting means 7 (product appearance constraint expression setting step S3- 3) Five means (steps) of the objective function setting means 8 (objective function setting step S3-4) and the optimum solution calculating means 9 (optimal solution calculating step S3-5) are used to determine the mountain sorting that optimizes the mountain sorting. This corresponds to means 10 (mountain sorting determination step S3). That is, the mountain sorting determination means 10 (mountain sorting determination step S3) is composed of the five means 5-9 (steps S3-1 to S3-5).
The optimum solution calculating means 9 can be realized, for example, by executing a program stored in the ROM or the like by the CPU of the transport control device 2 using the RAM as a work area.

(8) Transport work instruction generation means 11 (transport work instruction generation step S4)
The conveyance work instruction generation means 11 is the optimum solution x _opt [i] [m], y _opt [i ₁ ] [i ₂ ] [m] calculated by the optimum solution calculation means 9 (optimum solution calculation step S3-5). , And δ _opt [m], the conveyance order of each conveyance lot for sorting the mountains is determined. Further, the transfer work instruction generating unit 11 sets the steel yard receiving port (for example, the receiving table X) as the transfer start position, and sets a place where there is a vacancy from the “yard state (information)” (transfer end position). And a transport work instruction is generated. The transfer work order of the transfer lot i is performed in the order of arrival of the transfer lot i in the yard. However, if temporary placement is necessary for the transport lot i, it is necessary to transport the transport lot i from the temporary placement location to the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m, which is the final placement site, after receiving the lot. At this time, the transfer timing of the transfer lot i from the temporary storage site to the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m is immediately after the transfer lot i _{under to} be placed _{under the} transfer lot i is placed in the payout mountain (optimum mountain) m. The conveyance work instruction generation means 11 plans so that it becomes.
The conveyance work instruction generation unit 11 can be realized, for example, by the CPU of the conveyance control device 2 executing a program stored in a ROM or the like using the RAM as a work area.

(9) Conveyance work instruction means 12 (conveyance work instruction step S5)
The transfer work instruction unit 12 appropriately transfers the transfer amount (transfer operation instruction including the transfer order, movement start position, and movement destination position of each transfer lot) calculated by the transfer work instruction generation unit 11 to the transfer device 13. Output and manage logistics in the yard.
For example, the conveyance work instruction means 12 has a communication interface of the conveyance control device 2 that communicates with conveyance devices 13 such as cranes 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B, and the CPU of the conveyance control device 2 stores a program stored in a ROM or the like. It can be realized by executing using the RAM as a work area.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, the steel piles loaded into the yard where the steel materials are arranged as an interprocess place in the steel process are stacked, and the payout hill for paying out to the subsequent process of the yard is transferred using the transfer device. A steel material information capturing step for capturing steel material information that is information about a plurality of steel materials for which the payout mountain is to be created and information indicating a yard state, and a steel material information capturing step for creating the payout hill, Based on the steel material information taken in by the taking-in step, it is a constraint that assigns a transport lot, which is a unit that the transport device can transport at a time, to divide the plurality of steel materials into a plurality of payout piles. Satisfying the allocation constraint formula and the stacking shape constraint formula that is a constraint on the stacking shape of the payout hill, and minimizing an objective function for the purpose of reducing the number of payout hills A step of determining a mountain sorting to be determined, and a transfer instruction step for instructing the transfer device to perform a transfer operation so as to set up a mountain according to the determined mountain sorting, and further, in the mountain sorting determination step, In order to optimize the mountain sorting, we set an objective function with an index that maximizes the number of times and an index that minimizes the number of times of transportation, and results in a mathematical programming problem that satisfies the constraints related to mountain setting and transportation. Even if there are about 30 target transport lots (= elements), it is not necessary to rely on the heuristic solution and to divide the target, but within the allowable time required for this problem solution. It is possible to realize a mountain sorting plan for deriving an optimal solution.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail using simple examples.
FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B represent steel material information to be transported in the present embodiment. “Transport lot” and “product position” represent the identification number of the transport lot and the stack position in the transport lot, respectively. The stacking position is the number of stages counted from the lowest stage. In this example, there are 37 transport lots. Regarding the size problem, as described above, the method according to Patent Document 5 cannot optimally calculate all the elements at once.

In this example, consider the problem of stacking the steel materials to be transported by “rolling unit” in the state of being stacked from the top in the order of “lot No.” (in this example, “rolling units” are all the same. Only lot number ”is considered). In addition, the stacking shape restrictions at the time of mountain setting are the following restrictions regarding length, width, and height.
・ Length: The length of the steel stacked on the upper side shall not exceed 4000 [mm] than that of the steel stacked on the lower side.
-Width: The width of the steel stacked on the upper side shall not exceed (1.5 x the minimum width of the steel stacked on the lower side-290) [mm] of the steel stacked below.
・ Height: The number of stacks should not exceed 12.

  FIGS. 6A and 6B show an example of a mountain sorting plan formulated as a set partitioning problem according to Patent Document 5. FIG. As described above, since the problem size is too large for the method according to Patent Document 5 to optimize all steel materials at once, here, the number of elements is divided into a maximum of 12 small sets, and each small set is optimal. Calculations were made and finally the solutions were combined. In addition, the division | segmentation division | segmentation at this time is shown with the dashed-dotted line in FIGS. 5-1, 5-2, and a conveyance lot is divided | segmented into three from 1-12 to 13-24, 25-37. To solve the problem.

7A and 7B show an example of a mountain sorting plan formulated by the method according to the present embodiment. In the method according to the present embodiment, the optimum calculation can be performed at one time, and thus the calculation was performed. Note that the objective function at the time of optimization according to the present embodiment minimizes J = 10 × (number of peaks) + (temporary placement number) in any case.
The “direct delivery flag” shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 is a flag indicating whether or not the direct transfer from the receiving port (for example, the receiving table X) to the optimum mountain (payout mountain) is possible, and when this value is “1” Indicates that direct sending is possible, and “0” indicates that temporary placement is required. “Temporary placement” is a number assigned in order to the transport lots in which temporary placement occurs, and the number of times of transport increases by the number of transport lots to which numbers are assigned.

Here, the result by patent document 5 (FIG. 6) and the result by a present Example (FIG. 7) are compared. First of all, it is better for the number of peaks to be small, but in the method of the present embodiment in which the optimum calculation is performed at once, it is settled in nine peaks when the peaks are sorted, but the patent document in which the optimum calculation is divided and performed There are 10 mountains in the 5 method.
Further, regarding the number of times of conveyance, when compared with the number of “temporary placement”, the number of temporary placement target lots is 9 lots in the method of the present embodiment, whereas 10 lots in the method of Patent Document 5 It can be seen that the method of the example has a smaller number of hills and a smaller number of conveyances for creating the hill.
Thus, even in the case of carrying out mountain sorting where the number of conveyance lots exceeds 30, the number of peaks and the number of conveyances can be reduced by performing the optimum calculation at once by the method of this embodiment (this example). A transportation plan can be created.

(Another embodiment according to the present invention)
Each step of the transport control method of the present invention supplies a storage medium storing software program codes for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or apparatus, and the system or apparatus computer (CPU or CPU). Needless to say, this can also be achieved when the MPU) reads and executes the program code stored in the storage medium.
In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.
As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a flexible disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.
Further, by executing the program code read by the computer, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, but also an OS (operating system) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. However, it is needless to say that a case where the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by performing part or all of the actual processing and the processing is included.
Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion is performed based on the instruction of the program code. It goes without saying that the CPU or the like provided in the board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

  It should be noted that the embodiments of the present invention described above are merely examples of implementation in carrying out the present invention, and the technical scope of the present invention should not be construed as being limited thereto. Is. That is, the present invention can be implemented in various forms without departing from the technical idea or the main features thereof.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Steel management system computer 2 Conveyance control apparatus 3 Input information taking means 4 Conveyance lot information generation means 5 Decision variable setting means 6 Assignment constraint expression setting means 7 Stack form constraint expression setting means 8 Objective function setting means 9 Optimal solution calculation means 10 Mountain sorting optimization means 11 Transport work instruction generating means 12 Transport work instruction means 13 Transport equipment

Claims (7)

Uses a computer to carry out transport control to create a payout pile for stacking steel materials carried into a yard where steel materials are placed as an inter-process place in the steel process and then paying them to the subsequent process of the yard. A transport control method for
It is information about a plurality of steel materials for which the payout mountain is to be created, and at least the steel material number, the order of receiving or receiving the steel materials to the yard, the order of discharging or discharging the steel materials to the subsequent process, and the dimensions of the steel materials An input information capturing step for capturing the steel material information including the information indicating the state of the yard,
Based on the steel material information fetched in the input information fetching step, the mountain sorting that assigns each of the plurality of steel materials to one of a plurality of payout hills is an assignment that is a constraint when assigning the steel materials to the payout hill Mountain sorting that satisfies the constraint equation and the stacking shape constraint equation that is a constraint on the stacking shape of the payout hill, and that is determined so as to minimize the objective function for the purpose of reducing the number of payout hills. A decision step;
A transport instruction step for instructing a transport operation to the transport device so as to set up a mountain according to the mountain sorting determined by the mountain sorting determination step and the state of the yard;
Have
The mountain sorting determination step includes:
A decision variable setting step for setting a decision variable which is a variable to be determined when determining the mountain sorting;
Allocation constraint equation setting step for setting the allocation constraint equation, which is a constraint for assigning a plurality of steel materials to be created as the payout mountain to the payout mountain, and is formulated as a relationship with respect to the decision variable;
A product shape constraint equation setting step for setting the product shape constraint equation defined as a relationship with respect to the decision variable.
Objective function setting step for setting the objective function which is a function that takes a smaller value as the number of payout hills created by the mountain sorting is smaller and as the number of times of carrying work required to create the payout hills is smaller When,
An optimal solution calculating step of calculating an optimal solution of the decision variable that satisfies the allocation constraint equation and the product form constraint equation and minimizes the objective function;
Further comprising
The determination variable set in the determination variable setting step includes a stacking position relation variable representing a vertical relationship between stacking positions when any two steel materials are allocated to the payout pile, and a payout mountain representing the presence or absence of the payout pile. An existence determination variable, and a mountain sorting variable indicating whether or not to assign the steel material to the payout pile,
The allocation constraint equation is defined as a relationship with respect to the mountain sorting variable, and the relationship between the unique constraint representing that any steel material is allocated to one of the payout mountains and the mountain sorting variable Includes definition constraints for loading position variables that define loading position variables,
The stacking shape constraint formula is defined as a relationship between the stacking position relation variable, the payout pile existence determination variable, and the pile sorting variable, and a constraint on the dimensions between the steel materials stacked above and below the same payout pile, Including restrictions on the order of payout between the steel members stacked above and below the same payout hill, and restrictions on the height of the payout hill,
The objective function is the number of times calculated from the arrival order of any two of the steel materials to the yard and the product order in the payout hill, and the number of temporary placements in the middle of being transported to the payout hill A transport control method, wherein the function is such that the smaller the number is, the fewer the number of transport operations is. Dividing the plurality of steel materials into conveyance lots, which are units that can be conveyed at one time, from the steel material information about the plurality of steel materials to be used for creating the payout hill, which is acquired by the input information acquisition step. And a transport lot information generation step for generating information about the transport lot,
The mountain sorting determination step, according to claim 1, wherein based on information about the transport lot information conveyed lot generated by the generating step, and determining the mountain sorting to separate the plurality of steel into a plurality of payout mountain conveying control method according to. And in the mountain sorting decision step 0-1 the optimum solution calculated as an integer programming problem, the transport control method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that to optimize the mountain sorting. A transport control device for stacking steel materials carried into a yard in which steel materials are arranged as an inter-process place in a steel process and creating a payout pile for paying out the subsequent process of the yard using a transport device. ,
It is information about a plurality of steel materials for which the payout mountain is to be created, and at least the steel material number, the order of receiving or receiving the steel materials to the yard, the order of discharging or discharging the steel materials to the subsequent process, and the dimensions of the steel materials Input information capturing means for capturing the steel material information including the information indicating the state of the yard,
Based on the steel information retrieved by said input information capturing means, a mountain sorting to assign each of the plurality of steel into one of a plurality of payout mountain, is a constraint for assigning a steel material該払Deyama assignment Mountain sorting that satisfies the constraint equation and the stacking shape constraint equation that is a constraint on the stacking shape of the payout hill, and that is determined so as to minimize the objective function for the purpose of reducing the number of payout hills. A determination means;
A transport instruction means for instructing the transport device to perform a transport operation so as to set up a mountain according to the mountain sorting determined by the mountain sorting determination means and the state of the yard;
Have
The mountain sorting determination means includes:
A decision variable setting means for setting a decision variable that is a variable to be determined when determining the mountain sorting;
Allocation constraint equation setting means for setting the allocation constraint equation, which is a constraint for assigning a plurality of steel materials to be created to the withdrawal mountain, and is formulated as a relationship with respect to the decision variable;
A product shape constraint equation setting means for setting the product shape constraint equation defined as a relationship with respect to the decision variable.
Objective function setting means for setting the objective function which is a function that takes a smaller value as the number of payout hills created by the mountain sorting is smaller and as the number of times of the transport work required to create the payout hills is smaller When,
An optimal solution calculating means for calculating an optimal solution of the decision variable that satisfies the allocation constraint equation and the product form constraint equation and minimizes the objective function;
Further comprising
The decision variable set by the decision variable setting means includes a stacking position relation variable indicating the vertical relationship of stacking positions when assigning any two steel materials to the payout pile, and a payout mountain indicating the presence or absence of the payout pile. An existence determination variable, and a mountain sorting variable indicating whether or not to assign the steel material to the payout pile,
The allocation constraint equation is defined as a relationship with respect to the mountain sorting variable, and the relationship between the unique constraint representing that any steel material is allocated to one of the payout mountains and the mountain sorting variable Includes definition constraints for loading position variables that define loading position variables,
The stacking shape constraint formula is defined as a relationship between the stacking position relation variable, the payout pile existence determination variable, and the pile sorting variable, and a constraint on the dimensions between the steel materials stacked above and below the same payout pile, Including restrictions on the order of payout between the steel members stacked above and below the same payout hill, and restrictions on the height of the payout hill,
The objective function is the number of times calculated from the arrival order of any two of the steel materials to the yard and the product order in the payout hill, and the number of temporary placements in the middle of being transported to the payout hill A transport control device characterized by a function that evaluates that the smaller the number is, the smaller the number of transport operations is. Dividing the plurality of steel materials into conveyance lots, which are units that the conveyance device can convey at a time, from the steel material information about the plurality of steel materials for which the payout hill is created, which is captured by the input information capturing means. And further includes a transport lot information generating means for generating information about the transport lot,
The mountain sorting determining means, based on information about the transport lots produced by the transport lot information generation means, according to claim 4, characterized in that determining the mountain sorting to separate the plurality of steel into a plurality of payout mountain conveyance control apparatus according to. The transport control apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the mountain sorting determination unit calculates the optimum solution as a 0-1 integer programming problem and optimizes the mountain sorting. The computer, the computer program characterized by executing the steps of the conveyance control process according to any one of claims 1-3.

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