A sheet-shaped-medium feeder includes a housing, a mount portion that is disposed to be vertically movable in the housing and that receives sheet-shaped media, a lift that vertically raises or lowers the mount portion, a discharger that transports the sheet-shaped media stacked on the mount portion to a transport portion by sucking the sheet-shaped media with a suction portion in order from an upper one of the sheet-shaped media, left and right side walls that come into contact with left and right edges, in a feed width, of the sheet-shaped media stacked on the mount portion, left and right air outlets that are disposed in the left and right side walls, and blow air to the sheet-shaped media stacked on the mount portion at the left and right edges in the feed width, left and right first limiters that are respectively disposed on the left and right side walls, and limit a height of at least one of the sheet-shaped media that floats with air blown by the left and right air outlets by coming into contact with an upper surface of the at least one sheet-shaped medium, and left and right second limiters that are disposed in areas between a suction area of the suction portion and the left and right side walls, and limit a height of the upper surface of the floating sheet-shaped medium by coming into contact with the upper surface.

Methods and apparatus for forming containers from container blanks are provided. An apparatus comprises a blank holding apparatus operable to releasably hold a plurality of carton blanks in a first configuration. The apparatus also has a rotary apparatus operable to rotate an engagement device along a rotational path from a first retrieval location where the engagement device is operable to engage with and retrieve a blank from the plurality of blanks held in the blank holding apparatus, to a second operational location. The apparatus also has a movement apparatus inter-connected to the rotary apparatus. The movement apparatus is operable to move the rotary apparatus and the engagement device with the engaged blank away from the blank holding apparatus, which may be translational movement away from the blank holding apparatus.

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming portion, a tray rotatably provided on a side surface of a main assembly and including a stacking surface, a feeding portion; and a blowing fan mounted on the tray and generating air blown to a side end of a sheet in a sheet widthwise direction perpendicular to a feeding direction of the sheet by the feeding portion. The blowing fan is disposed on an opposite side to a side where the sheet is stacked on the stacking surface so that a position of at least a part of the blowing fan with respect to the sheet widthwise direction is overlapped with a position of the stacking surface with respect to the sheet widthwise direction.

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming portion, a tray rotatably provided on a side surface of a main assembly and including a stacking surface, a feeding portion; and a blowing fan mounted on the tray and generating air blown to a side end of a sheet in a sheet widthwise direction perpendicular to a feeding direction of the sheet by the feeding portion. The blowing fan is disposed on an opposite side to a side where the sheet is stacked on the stacking surface so that a position of at least a part of the blowing fan with respect to the sheet widthwise direction is overlapped with a position of the stacking surface with respect to the sheet widthwise direction.

Provided is a sheet folding apparatus including: a stacking unit configured to be stacked with a paper stack; a feeding roller configured to come into contact with a surface of the uppermost sheet of the paper stack and feed sheets in a feeding direction; and a sheet separating mechanism configured to separate the uppermost sheet of the paper stack from the remaining sheets. The sheet separating mechanism has a suction unit that sucks and pulls the uppermost sheet of the paper stack upward in upstream in a feeding direction and an injection mechanism that separates the uppermost sheet from the remaining sheets by injecting air toward a predetermined region including an end face in upstream in the feeding direction of the paper stack including the uppermost sheet. The injection mechanism has a rotary injection unit configured to inject air to change a first injection direction oriented to the predetermined region.

Provided is a press process automation system for a metal plate using an auto-robot. The press process automation system includes a loading unit configured to provide a stack in which a plurality of metal plates are stacked in a height direction thereof, a first robot which is coupled to the metal plate disposed on the loading unit, a table unit which is disposed at a lower position than the first target position, and determines whether the number of the metal plates is one, a second robot configured to vacuum-adsorb an upper surface of the metal plate disposed on the table unit, and a press mold unit including a lower mold which is vertically disposed at a lower position than the third target position and on which the metal plate is mounted, and an upper mold which is vertically moved from above the lower mold.

A vacuum lifter apparatus for lifting sheet material articles, comprises an upper chassis joined to a substantially planar lower suction plate and an airflow suction system for conveying vacuum air pressure to the suction plate. The suction plate comprises a plurality of suction plate modules, each comprising a housing with a substantially hollow interior and each of the housings being located laterally adjacent at least one other of the housings. Each of the housings comprises a lower plate, an upper plate and at least one side plate, each housing being affixed to the laterally adjacent housing along a seam between adjoining pairs of side plates. The upper plates each comprise at least one opening and the lower plates are each perforated with a plurality of orifices through which, in use, air is drawn along airflow paths through the interior and out of the opening by the airflow suction system.

The present invention provides a denesting apparatus (100, 200), the apparatus comprising: ⋅—one or more closed loop conveying tracks (130, 230), each closed loop conveying track comprising a plurality of sets of one or more de-stacking means (140, 240) movingly configured thereon through one or more de-stacking means moving mechanism (150, 250); ⋅—one or more stacking magazines (120, 220), each adapted to hold a stack of sheets (110, 210) supported thereon; wherein each of the plurality of sets of de-stacking means is adapted to selectively engage an uppermost sheet from at least one of the stacking magazines in any desired order either sequentially and/or simultaneously so as to discharge the picked-up sheets onto an out-feed conveyor (180, 280) in any desired manner either one besides another or otherwise one overlapping the other.

A sheet separating device includes a receptacle, a pickup rotator, an air supplier, and a sheet floating restraint. The receptacle is configured to hold a plurality of sheets. The pickup rotator is configured to feed the plurality of sheets one by one from the receptacle. The air supplier includes an air outlet disposed ahead of the receptacle in a sheet feeding direction in which the plurality of sheets is fed. The air supplier is configured to blow air out from the air outlet toward a leading end of the plurality of sheets, held on the receptacle, in the sheet feeding direction. The sheet floating restraint is configured to restrain floating of a part of the plurality of sheets separated from each other by the air blown out from the air outlet.

The invention relates to a system for sorting veneer sheets. The system comprises: an assembly section; a reject section; a feeding section arranged between the assembly section and the reject section; at least one detection device configured to scan a top surface of a topmost veneer sheet of a stack of veneer sheets to provide a plurality of successive scan lines images; at least two parallel transfer devices; and a control system. The control system is configured to provide a surface scan image from the plurality of successive scan lines images, determine one or more properties of the veneer sheet based on the surface scan image, and to control the at least two transfer devices to: move from an avoidance position to a pick-up position determined based on the surface scan image; pick up the topmost veneer sheet of the stack of veneer sheets; and transfer the picked-up veneer sheet to the assembly section in response to detecting that each of the determined one or more properties of the veneer sheet meets a respective predetermined criterion, or otherwise transfer the picked-up veneer sheet to the reject section. The invention relates also to a method for sorting veneer sheets.