JPS6257858A - Method for grasping arrangement of vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the omission or duplication of information on the border of areas in charge of each line computer by making a host computer discard the following information and receive a transmission after confirming the movement of a car, when the movement of said car from an area in charge of a line computer to the following area has been transmitted from a moving-out side. CONSTITUTION:When a car passes through the border of a car arrangement grasping area of a line computer 4i, the car number (a) is inputted into an arrangement making part 430 by means of a car recognizing device on the moving-in side, and is outputted as an information signal (e), to the movement controlling/monitoring part 130 of a host computer 1. And, a discarding signal (i) on the computers 4i of the transmitting side and of its previous process side, is outputted to an arrangement receiving part 120. Then, as a specification information transmission command signal (j) is outputted to a specification information transmitting part 150, the received car number is checked using information from an information memory part 100 and, when judged no error, a command of inputting the car number into an information memory part 410 is sent to the transmitting side computer 4i while a discarding command is sent to the previous process side computer. Both the computers 4i transmit response signals (f) after storage has completed, and the discarding command is removed.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a method for understanding vehicle rows, and in particular, collects vehicle row information from a plurality of dispersed systems in one place and collects all the vehicle row information without omission or duplication. The present invention relates to a method for understanding vehicle lineups that can be used to determine vehicle lineups in real time throughout a process.

[Conventional technology]

In general, automobile production plants do not produce only one type of vehicle, but a plurality of types of vehicles within one production plant. Moreover, many vehicles of the same type but with different specifications are produced within the same production plant. For this reason, the scale of the factory has increased, and although there are multiple production lines, each production line is managed to produce a separate vehicle. On the conveyor of each production line, there are multiple types of vehicles, and even vehicles of the same type with different specifications, and vehicles with different specifications are placed and flowing. In the production of such vehicles,
Regarding each type and each specification, it is necessary to uniformly give instructions to workers on each production line throughout the entire process. In addition, since vehicles of different models are carried on the conveyor, it is extremely important to manage the inventory of parts, etc. necessary for manufacturing at each work site in order to smoothly produce vehicles. be. Furthermore, based on the number of parts in stock, the number of vehicles already produced by vehicle type, and the distance between vehicles on the conveyor of the production line, how much overtime will you have to work after the day's working hours have passed, or how many hours will you have to work overtime? In order to achieve the most efficient operation, it is necessary to uniformly manage all processes within one production factory.

In order to give instructions to such workers and to uniformly manage the inventory for each manufacturing process and the required overtime of workers across all processes in one production factory, it is necessary to use the same system for each production line. Even on the production line, vehicles of different types or specifications flow, so vehicle type information,
In addition to uniformly managing vehicle specification information throughout all production processes, the vehicle placement status in each process, i.e.
It is necessary to uniformly manage vehicle rows throughout the vehicle production process. This means that workers install parts on vehicles that have been placed on a conveyor according to the specified specifications, and the workers themselves do not decide the type and specifications of the vehicle based on the vehicle's external shape, etc. It is from.

In addition, when giving detailed instructions to workers or automating production using robots, etc., it is necessary to monitor the entire production process, including in what order and how the vehicles are lined up continuously or intermittently. It is necessary to have a strict understanding of the entire range.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

Recently, as shown in Japanese Patent Application No. 1122/1983, considering the number of vehicles stored in each vehicle storage and the order in which vehicles are serially transported to the assembly line, A method of changing the order of transport of vehicles to an assembly line has been developed, which makes it possible to always supply optimal vehicles one after another. However, even with such a method, it has been possible to manage only the number and number of vehicles in a certain process, such as N vehicles of type A and specification A, for example. Furthermore, the production management/factory control system of an automobile production factory is configured as a distributed system for each production line because the factory is large and there is a large amount of information about each vehicle, such as differences in vehicle types and specifications. Each production management/factory control subsystem is responsible for each process separately.

Not all vehicles placed on the conveyor of the production line in each of these processes are produced perfectly, and some of them fail due to quality control.

Vehicles with production problems like this need to be temporarily removed from the production line and repaired.

In this way, if a part of the vehicles that are originally flowing continuously are pushed out, the distance between one vehicle on the conveyor and the next vehicle (usually the space for one vehicle) When the number of vehicles that appear continues, 2, 3, etc.
...There may be space for multiple cars. The vehicle between these vehicles is generally referred to as having a missing body. ) occurs. This missing body could not be recognized using conventional methods for determining vehicle alignment.

Recognition devices for vehicles passing on the conveyor line are installed at key locations on each production line, and each production management/factory control subsystem uses information from the recognition devices to identify the processes in charge. I understand the line up of vehicles flowing inside. In order to centrally display the status of vehicle rows in all processes, the vehicle row information held by each subsystem must be combined in one place (generally the host system).

However, when a vehicle production line changes from production process A to production process B, if the communication of vehicle flow information between each production line is not sufficient, vehicle row information from multiple distributed systems will be transferred to one place. If this is done collectively, vehicles may be left out or duplicated, making it impossible to accurately determine the vehicle arrangement.In other words, one production line is normally managed and controlled by multiple subsystems. Therefore, if we only asynchronously collect the vehicle arrangement information held by each subsystem, the vehicle information for one vehicle may be duplicated or missing at the boundary between the processes in charge of the subsystems. There is a problem with that.

[Purpose of the invention]

The purpose of the present invention is to provide information on the arrangement of vehicles on a conveyor line in each production management/factory control subsystem of an automobile production factory configured as a five-distributed system.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for understanding the arrangement of vehicles that can overlap vehicle information at the boundary portion of the process in charge between each subsystem without overlapping the vehicle information.

Means for Solving Problem C] The present invention includes a conveyor on which a plurality of vehicles can be placed at intervals, and the entire conveyor is divided into a plurality of vehicle arrangement grasping areas, and each divided vehicle is A vehicle recognition device that can determine the vehicle number is provided at least on the vehicle entry side and the vehicle exit side of each of the vehicle row recognition areas, and a line computer that can determine the row of vehicles in each vehicle row recognition area is installed in each vehicle row recognition area. In a vehicle arrangement grasping method in which the vehicle arrangement is prepared for each area and the vehicle arrangement in the area covered by each line computer is ascertained by a host computer based on the vehicle arrangement information transmitted from the line computer, the vehicle arrangement in the area in charge of each line computer is Each time the information is updated, it is sent to the above host computer, and when the line computer on the outgoing side of the vehicle sends information that the vehicle has left the area in charge of the line computer described in 1 and moved to the area in charge of the next line computer. Thereafter, the vehicle line information from the line computer on the exit side of the vehicle will be discarded, and
This system is characterized in that the host computer accepts transmission from the line computer after the host computer confirms that the information on the vehicle has moved from the previous area to the next area.

〔Example〕

Examples of the present invention will be described below.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a production management/factory control system in an automobile production factory to which the present invention is applied.

In other words, host computer 1 (, 1 pass line 3
A plurality of line computers 4a, 4b, 4c,
...4n is connected. This line computer 4 a + 4 b + 4 c +...4n
The vehicle 6 placed on the conveyor 7 is recognized by the vehicle L (j recognition device 5).

In addition, these line computers 4a, 4b, 4C9...
...4n is one conveyor 7 which is a series of production processes
Divide the top into n areas and add 1 to each area. Responsible for the management and control of areas corresponding to The management/control area handled by each line computer 4a, 4b, 4c, . . . 4n has a configuration as shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, line computer 4a is taken as an example, but other line computers 4a, 4b, 4
Although there is a difference in the number of vehicle recognition devices 5 installed in the vehicles c, . . . 4n, the basic configuration remains the same.

In FIG. 2, the conveyor 7 of the production line is configured so that eight vehicles 6 can be placed thereon.

This conveyor 7 flows as shown by arrow A in the figure. A vehicle recognition device 5a for reading the number of the vehicle entering the conveyor 7 is provided at the entrance end of the vehicle line grasping area (2) of the conveyor 7. In addition, the exit end of the vehicle line-up detection area (■) of the conveyor 7 recognizes that a vehicle has left the vehicle line-up area (■) of the conveyor 7, that is, that the vehicle has moved to the vehicle line-up detection area (■). A vehicle recognition device 5c is provided. Further, the vehicle conveyor 7 is provided with a recognition device 5b at an intermediate position of the vehicle arrangement recognition area I of the conveyor 7. Further, the conveyor 7 is provided with a motor (not shown) for driving the conveyor 7, and this motor is controlled by a conveyor control device (not shown).

Vehicle recognition signals output from the vehicle recognition devices 5a, 5b, and 5c are input to a signal conversion device 8. A line computer 4a is connected to this signal conversion device 8, and the signal conversion device 8 is a device that converts signals into signals that can be recognized by this line computer 4a. A storage device 41 and a display device 42 are connected to this line computer 4a.

With this structure, the vehicles flow on the conveyor 7 from left to right at a constant interval a, and FIG. 2 shows that the second vehicle from the left is missing a body. The vehicle recognition bag [5a is used to read the type and specification of the vehicle that is being thrown into the conveyor 7. This vehicle information is sent to the line computer 4 via the signal converter 8.
input to a.

In this way, the line computer 4a takes in the signal via the signal conversion device 8, grasps the line-up state of the vehicles on the conveyor 7, reads out specification information from the storage device 41 in which specifications for each vehicle are stored, and displays it. The vehicle arrangement and specifications are displayed on the device 42.

The display on the display device 42 is, for example, as shown in FIG. That is, FIG. 3(A) shows the actual vehicle line-up on the conveyor 7-to, and now, ■.

Assuming that the part (3) is missing the body, there are two ways to display it. One is to display the vehicles on the conveyor 7 one after another as shown in Fig. 3 (B), and there are only 6 vehicles on the conveyor 7 instead of the actual space required for 8 vehicles. It displays 6 machines in succession.

This is the conventional display method, and according to this, conveyor 7
It only displays the number of vehicles mounted on the screen, but is not suitable for grasping the position in which the vehicles are mounted. That is, the body missing information of ■ and ■ cannot be recognized. Another method is as shown in Figure 3 (C),
It displays the rows of vehicles as they are, including the missing bodies.

,: This makes it clear that the body is missing. Furthermore, the third
In the figure, ■ to ■ indicate the number of vehicles, and 11 to 16 indicate vehicle numbers recognized by the vehicle recognition device 5a.

The structure of the vehicle row file in the storage device 41 as shown in FIG. 3(C) is shown in FIG. In the figure, MAX
The number of vehicles indicates the maximum number of vehicles that can be placed on the conveyor (physically possible) within the vehicle line grasp area ■, and the number of vehicles indicates the maximum number of vehicles that can be placed on the conveyor within the vehicle line grasp area I on the conveyor. The number of vehicles present is shown. Therefore, the number of vehicles with missing bodies is not counted in the number of vehicles.

The vehicle information in the vehicle arrangement grasping area (2) on the conveyor 7 is entered from the memory area next to this number of vehicles.

This vehicle information memory area has an address designated for each area, and this memory area is designated by the vehicle recognition device 5a.
, 5b, and 5c, respectively.

That is, the vehicle recognition device 5a recognizes Na(M) in the memory area.
The vehicle recognition device 5b controls the writing to the memory area N(1 (CENTER)), and the vehicle recognition device 5c controls the erasure of the leading buffer.In this case, the two Using a shift register, the vehicle recognition device 5a performs Na (M A X ) - Na (CE
Using the register for shift 1 up to N T E R
can be displayed in series by using it for erasing the leading area.

FIG. 5 shows an arrangement display of vehicle information when the vehicles are lined up as shown in FIG. 3(A) in such a storage area. That is, it is assumed for convenience that the maximum number of vehicles that can be placed in the vehicle arrangement grasping area 1 on the conveyor 7 is eight, and the actual number of vehicles is six. The missing bodies of Nα4 and Nα5 contain a code indicating the missing body, and Nα1~
Contains up to Nα7 CNa (MAX-1)). This memory area Nα4 is NaCENTER in FIG. 4, and is a memory area written by the vehicle recognition device 5b.

Based on information from the vehicle recognition device 5, the line computer 4 grasps the arrangement (flow state) of vehicles on the conveyor in the process that the line computer is responsible for managing and controlling, and performs line control. The line computer 4 also transmits vehicle arrangement information to the host computer 1 when there is a change in the number of vehicles within the vehicle arrangement monitoring area controlled by the line computer. The host computer 11 supervises the entire system, receives vehicle row data sent from each line computer of the distributed system, constructs vehicle row data for all processes, and displays the vehicle row status in a display bag v12. indicate.

FIG. 6 shows the internal structure of the host computer 1 and line computer 41. Thick solid lines in the figure represent writing and reading of information. The host computer 1 and line computer 41 are connected via a path line 3 by a communication control section 160 and a communication control section 470, and exchange information with each other.

The host computer 1 controls the movement of the arrangement information storage section 100, the display control section] 710, and the arrangement reception section 120.
It is composed of a monitoring section 130, a specification information storage section 140, a specification information transmission section 150, and a communication control section 60. The display control unit 110 displays vehicle line information for all processes on the display device 2 based on the output from the line information storage unit 100.
It is to be displayed in a format that is easy for superiors to see.

In addition, the line computer 41 includes a line information storage section 41
0, a sequence transmitting section 420, a sequence creating section 430, a specification information receiving section 440, a specification information storage section 450, a line control section 460, and a communication control section 470.

The line computer 41 supervises the vehicle rows of the distributed system, and the vehicle row information is sent to the row creation unit 430.
It is made in The storage operation of the sequence creation section 430 is shown in FIG. That is, step 50
0, the reception of the vehicle information signal a from the vehicle recognition device 5 or the reception of the queue operation command signal S, which is a command to operate the vehicle queue information input from the host computer 1 via the communication control unit 470. If so, step 5
01, it is determined whether the signal received in step 500 is a vehicle recognition information signal. If it is determined in step 501 that the signal received in step 500 is a vehicle recognition information signal, a line control timing signal c is output to the line control section 460 in step 502. In this step 502,
When the timing signal C is output, in step 503, the received vehicle information is determined from the vehicle recognition device 5 (vehicle recognition device 5a or 5b in the illustrated example in FIG. 2) located at the entrance of the vehicle line recognition area of the line computer. Determine whether or not.

If it is determined in step 503 that the signal is not from the vehicle recognition device 5 located at the entrance of the vehicle line recognition area,
In step 504, the arrangement information storage unit 410 is updated, and in step 505, a arrangement information transmission request signal d is output to the arrangement transmission unit 420, and in step 5
Return to 00.

Further, if it is determined in step 503 that the signal from the vehicle recognition device 5 is a signal from a vehicle recognition device located at the entrance of the vehicle line recognition area, in step 506, the vehicle number sent from the vehicle recognition device 5 is sorted. The generation unit 430 transmits the signal e to the movement control/monitoring unit 130 via the communication control unit 470 and the communication control unit 160 of the host computer 1, and the process returns to step 500.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step 501 that the signal received in step 500 is a line-up operation command signal,
In step 507, the arrangement information is updated in the storage section 410 according to the command, and in step 508, the arrangement creation section 430 sends a response signal f indicating completion of the update to the movement control/monitoring section 130 of the host computer 1. Moving on to 505.

The sequence transmitter 420, which receives the transmission request signal d from the sequence generator 430, operates based on the storage flowchart shown in FIG. That is, in step 600, after waiting for the transmission request signal d from the sequence creation section 430 to be output, the transmission request signal d is output from the sequence creation section 430.
is output.

In step 601, all output transmission requests are cleared. Next, in step 602, the line information stored in the line information storage unit 410 of the vehicle line grasping area that the line computer is in charge of is sent to the line receiving unit 120 of the host computer as the line information signal g.
to the communication control unit 470.160. Thereafter, the alignment receiving section 120 outputs a response signal indicating that the alignment has been received. When this response signal is received in step 603, it is determined in step 604 whether the response signal received in step 603 is that the alignment information signal g transmitted from the alignment transmitter 420 has been discarded or accepted. If it is determined in step 604 that the data has been discarded, the process returns to step 60.1 and retransmission is performed. Further, if it is determined in step 604 that it has been accepted, step 60
At step 5, the process waits for a certain period of time (about 10 seconds to 1 minute depending on the pitch of vehicle production) to ensure a time interval until the next transmission, and then returns to step 600.

The storage operation of the line receiving section 120 of the host computer 1 which receives the line transmitting section 420 of the line computer 41 and the line receiving section 120 of the host computer 1 will be explained with reference to FIG. That is, when the line information signal g is received from the line transmitter 420 of the line computer 41 in step 700, the movement control/monitoring unit 13 receives the line information signal g in step 701.
0, it is determined whether a command signal i for discarding reception from the line computer is being output. If it is determined in step 701 that there is no command signal i to discard the reception from the line computer, step 7
In step 02, the received vehicle arrangement information is written in the memory area of the corresponding vehicle arrangement understanding area of the arrangement information storage unit 100 where vehicle arrangement information of all processes is stored, and in step 703, the received vehicle arrangement information is written to the destination line computer. The signal is sent and the process returns to step 700. Also.

If it is determined in step 701 that there is a command to discard reception from the line computer, step 704
In step 700, the vehicle line information sent from the line computer's line transmitter 420 is not written, a discarded response signal is sent, and the process returns to step 700.

Next, the operation of the movement control/monitoring section 130 that outputs the discard command signal i to the line receiving section 120 will be explained using the flowchart of FIG. First, when a vehicle passes through the boundary of the vehicle line understanding area of the line computer, the vehicle number signal a recognized by the vehicle recognition device 5a installed on the entrance side is input to the line creating section 430; Then, the vehicle number is output to the movement control/monitoring section 130 as a vehicle information signal e. When the movement control/monitoring unit 130 receives the vehicle number signal ek in step 800, in step 801 it receives vehicle arrangement information for the line computer of the transmission source and the line computer on the previous process side of the transmission source. A discard signal j is output to the receiving section 120 so as to discard the signal. Next, in step 802, a specification information transmission command signal j is output to the specification information transmitting section 150 in order to transmit the received specification information of the vehicle number to the destination line computer. When the specification information transmission command signal j is output in step 802, in step 803, using the vehicle arrangement information stored in the arrangement information storage unit 100, the received vehicle number is present at the exit of the vehicle arrangement information on the previous process side. Check whether to do so, and proceed to step 804. In step 804, it is determined whether or not the result of the check in step 804 is an error. That is,
If the received vehicle number does not exist at the exit of the process-resistant vehicle arrangement information, an error occurs. This step 804
When it is determined that there is no error.

In step 805, the received vehicle number information is arranged as a vehicle recognition information signal a from the previous process in the information storage section 100.
The process moves to the memory area of the vehicle arrangement understanding area where the vehicle recognition device that outputs the image exists, and moves to step 806. In step 806.

In order to match the vehicle arrangement information in the line computers, the sending line computer is instructed to import the vehicle number into the arrangement information storage section 410.

A command to delete the vehicle number from the alignment information is sent to the line computer on the front process side as a alignment operation command signal, and the process moves to step 809.

On the other hand, if it is determined that there is an error in step 804,
In step 807, error storage is performed. Next, in step 808, a line-up operation command signal due to the occurrence of the error is transmitted to the two line computers, and the process moves to step 809.

After the two line computers line up and store according to the operation command signal (s), they transmit a response signal (f) indicating that the storage has been completed. When this response signal f is received in step 809, in step 810, the discard instruction for vehicle alignment reception of the line computer that sent the response signal is canceled, and the process moves to step 811. This step 8
In step 11, it is determined whether there are responses from both of the two line computers. If there is no response, the process returns to step 809; if responses have been received from both, the process returns to step 800.

In this way, by discarding the vehicle queue information received between receiving the vehicle number and receiving the response to the queue operation command, it is possible to prevent the vehicle from moving within the boundary area of the line computer's vehicle queue understanding area. In some cases, it is possible to avoid temporary duplication or disappearance of one vehicle's worth of vehicle information in the queue information storage section 100.

Note that the specification information transmitting section 150 is connected to the movement control/monitoring section 13.
The vehicle number information signal e stored in the specification information storage section 140 of all vehicles according to the transmission command signal from 0 and j
A specification information signal based on the specification information signal is transmitted to the specification information receiving section 440 of the line computer 41 that is the transmission source. The specification information receiving unit 440 receives a vehicle specification information signal transmitted from the host computer 1 and specifies the specification information storage unit 4 of the vehicles in the vehicle arrangement understanding area of the line computer 41.
50 to the memory area.

Further, the line control section 460 receives the timing signal C from the arrangement creation section 430 and creates and outputs the control information signal e from the arrangement information storage section 410 and the specification information storage section 450. This controls the automatic machines at the site and gives work instructions to the creator.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, vehicle arrangement information on the conveyor line in each production management/factory control subsystem of an automobile production factory configured as a distributed system is transferred to the boundaries of the processes in charge between the respective systems. There is no possibility of omission or duplication of vehicle information in some parts.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 shows the production management/factory control system 1 of an automobile production factory.
1 is a diagram showing a configuration example, FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram of a unit process, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a display example, FIG. 4 is a file structure diagram of the storage device shown in FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 is a vehicle information 6 is an internal configuration diagram of the host computer and line computer, FIG. 7 is a processing flowchart of the sequence creation section, FIG. 8 is a processing flowchart of the sequence information transmission section 1 to 9, and FIG. 10 is a processing flowchart of the arrangement information receiving section, and FIG. 10 is a processing flowchart of the movement control/monitoring section. ]...Host computer, 2...Display device,
3... Pass line, 4a, 4b, 4c... Line computer, 5...
Vehicle recognition device, 6... Vehicle, 7... Conveyor.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A conveyor capable of placing a plurality of vehicles at intervals is provided, the entire conveyor is divided into a plurality of vehicle line-up grasping areas, and at least the vehicle entry side of each divided vehicle line-up grasping area is provided. A vehicle recognition device capable of determining the vehicle number is provided on the exit side of the vehicle, and a line computer is provided in each area to determine the vehicle arrangement in each area.
In a vehicle line-up grasping method in which a host computer grasps the vehicle line-up in an all-vehicle line-up grasping area based on vehicle line-up information transmitted from the line computer,
Sends information to the host computer each time vehicle line information is updated within the area in charge of each line computer,
When the line computer on the exit side of the vehicle transmits that the vehicle has left the area in charge of the above line computer and moved to the area in charge of the next line computer, the line computer on the exit side of the vehicle will A method for ascertaining vehicle line-up, characterized in that information is discarded and transmission from the line computer is accepted after the host computer confirms that the information of the vehicle has moved from the previous area to the next area.