An apparatus and method for manufacturing glass containers handles the containers individually after a hot forming process and annealing to prevent glass-to-glass contact. By handling the containers individually and preventing glass-to-glass contact damage to the containers in the form of checks and scratches is avoided. To prevent contact of the containers and damage arising from the contact, the equipment including conveyors, pushers, starwheels, shuttles, and transfer heads that move the glass containers through the apparatus maintains the glass containers in uniform spaced relationship at each stage of container processing until the containers are packaged.

An article accumulating apparatus that uses a robot to transfer to a predetermined location and accumulate an article conveyed thereto is disclosed. The article accumulating apparatus includes a conveyance unit, an accumulation unit, and a discharge unit. The conveyance unit is configured to convey the article. The accumulation unit is disposed in series with the conveyance unit and is configured to accumulate the article. The discharge unit is configured to discharge the article in the conveyance unit to an area outside the accumulation unit. The discharge unit is disposed in a robot movable range that is a range in which the robot holds and transfers the article to the accumulation unit.

A modular conveying assembly includes active roller control for reducing backline pressure without product to product contact when accumulating products. Methods are discussed for manipulating objects by a bump-through indexing operation, a slug-control indexing operation, a catch-and-release indexing operation, box or case turning operations, and zero-pressure accumulation operations.

An article accumulating apparatus that uses a robot to transfer to a predetermined location and accumulate an article conveyed thereto is disclosed. The article accumulating apparatus includes a conveyance unit, an accumulation unit, and a discharge unit. The conveyance unit is configured to convey the article. The accumulation unit is disposed in series with the conveyance unit and is configured to accumulate the article. The discharge unit is configured to discharge the article in the conveyance unit to an area outside the accumulation unit. The discharge unit is disposed in a robot movable range that is a range in which the robot holds and transfers the article to the accumulation unit.

The invention relates to a method which comprises determining first geometry information of a first object stream of a plurality of objects, which are transported on a first conveyor. The method also comprises determining second geometry information of a second object stream of a plurality of objects which are transported on a second conveyor. The first conveyor is configured to transport objects at a first speed, and the second conveyor is configured to transport objects at a second speed. The first conveyor and the second conveyor are arranged in such a way that the objects which are transported by the first conveyor move onto the second conveyor. The method also comprises adjusting the first speed of the first conveyor and/or adjusting the second speed of the second conveyor on the basis of the determined first geometry information and/or the determined second geometry information.

Various embodiments described herein relate to a method of predicting article dimensions and controlling release timing of upcoming articles from upstream conveyors and dynamically computing release times for the upstream conveyors. The method includes predicting a dimension of an upcoming article and creating empty spaces on an upstream conveyor between one or more upstream articles from among a set of upstream articles by controlling an operating speed of a set of drive motors of the upstream conveyor based on the predicted dimension for the upcoming article. Further, the release times of the set of upstream articles is dynamically computed based on a cumulative length of the set of upstream articles and an operating speed of the upstream conveyor.

A modular conveying assembly includes active roller control for reducing backline pressure without product to product contact when accumulating products. Methods are discussed for manipulating objects by a bump-through indexing operation, a slug-control indexing operation, a catch-and-release indexing operation, box or case turning operations, and zero-pressure accumulation operations.

Various embodiments described herein relate to a method of predicting article dimensions and controlling release timing of upcoming articles from upstream conveyors and dynamically computing release times for the upstream conveyors. The method includes predicting a dimension of an upcoming article and creating empty spaces on an upstream conveyor between one or more upstream articles from among a set of upstream articles by controlling an operating speed of a set of drive motors of the upstream conveyor based on the predicted dimension for the upcoming article. Further, the release times of the set of upstream articles is dynamically computed based on a cumulative length of the set of upstream articles and an operating speed of the upstream conveyor.

The disclosure relates to a device for forming container groups with a predetermined container piece count from a continuous container stream in a transport area of a filling plant, comprising an infeed conveyor belt, an outfeed conveyor belt, a conveyor belt interposed between the infeed conveyor belt and the outfeed conveyor belt, and a drive station for introducing separating elements and forming container groups. Here, the speed of a separating element introduced into the region of the transport belt is controlled to no more than the first speed, in particular to a speed lower by no more than 2% than the first speed, as long as the following container group has not been fully moved onto the transport belt. The disclosure further relates to a method for forming container groups.

A transport device for transporting at least one product (12a; 12b), with at least one guide unit (14a; 14b), with at least one conveyor unit (16a; 16b), which has at least one continuous conveyor unit (18a; 18b) mounted movably relative to the guide unit (14a; 14b), which comprises at least one movably mounted conveyor element (20a; 20b), and at least one further movably mounted conveyor element (22a; 22b), which are connected to each other to form the continuous conveyor unit (18a; 18b) and are at least jointly movable relative to the guide unit (14a; 14b), and with at least one conveyor drive unit (24a; 24b) for driving the continuous conveyor unit (18a; 18b) relative to the guide unit (14a; 14b), in particular for driving the continuous conveyor unit (18a; 18b) in rotation about the guide unit (14a; 14b).