METHOD FOR ELIMINATING REJECTS AND TRANSPORT UNIT SUITABLE THEREFOR

Abstract

A transport unit, such as a feeder of a packaging device, is provided, wherein the loading of the transport unit by portions is registered by a control and stored in a memory of the control. The transport unit, in particular its operating unit, is designed in such a manner that an operator can select and mark food pieces or portions to be removed from the transport unit and actually removed, on a display of the operating unit where they are displayed in a run during operation of the transport unit, whereupon the control automatically deletes the food pieces or portions in its memory.

For this purpose, the operator observes the transported food pieces or portions, preferably in reality, or on the display of the operating unit, and marks them as rejects, either by clicking on them with a cursor or touching them in the case of a touch-sensitive display.

Claims

1. A method for eliminating rejects from food pieces or portions transported in a single lane or multiple lanes along a transport section by transport unit including a plurality of conveyors, the method comprising: displaying, on a display of an operating unit, a realistic or symbolic representation of the food pieces or portions located in or downstream of a monitoring area of the transport section, marking a portion or a food piece thereof on the display as a reject, thereupon automatically changing a representation of the reject or removing the representation of the reject on the display, automatically removing data representing the reject from a memory of a control of the transport unit, in which memory data concerning the food pieces or portions located in the transport unit are stored, stopping at least one conveyor of the plurality of conveyors, and removing the reject from the transport unit.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the removal of the reject from the transport unit takes place before or after the marking.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising confirming, by an operator at the operating unit, the removal of the scrap reject from the transport unit.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein after the marking and the changing the representation of the reject on the display, a further input must be carried out in order to remove the representation of the reject on the display.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the marking and/or removal of the reject from the transport unit are/is performed only for one lane, or for all lanes next to each other.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the stopping the at least one conveyor for the removal of the reject is performed either after the reject has been marked on the display automatically with the reject at a fixed, easily accessible longitudinal position or by actuation of a stop switch by an operator, after which the operator marks the reject on the display.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising starting the at least one conveyor either by manual input by an operator at the operating unit or automatically as soon as the removal of the reject from the transport unit is confirmed by the operator at the operating unit.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein for the removal of the reject either an indication of a possible reject is shown to an operator on the display and the reject verified or recognized by the operator is marked by the operator or the control itself selects the reject and marks the reject on the display.

9. A transport unit for transporting food pieces or portions over a transport section, the transport unit comprising: one or more controllable conveyors arranged one behind the other in a transport direction, a control configured to store a presence and/or position of each food piece or portion along the transport unit, an operating unit comprising a display and at least one operating element for input of data or commands by an operator into the control, a contactless sensor above the transport section, and having a monitoring area for monitoring an area of the transport section of the transport unit, wherein the operating unit is designed to display at least the monitoring area monitored by the sensor in real or symbolic form as viewed from above, and the control is designed to mark visible food pieces or visible portions individually as deleted on the displayer, which are then displayed differently or deleted automatically on the display by the control and are stored in the control as no longer present.

10. A packaging device comprising a food processing unit for slicing food calibers into slices, a packaging machine for packaging the slices, and the transport unit according to claim 9, wherein the transport unit comprises a feeder located downstream of the food processing unit, and upstream of the packaging machine.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the removing the reject from the transport unit comprises manually removing the reject from transport unit.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the display comprises a touch-sensitive screen, and the marking the portion or the food piece thereof comprises touching a representation of the portion or the food piece thereof on the touch-sensitive screen.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the marking the portion or the food piece thereof comprises clicking on a representation of the portion or the food piece thereof on the display with a cursor.

14. The method according to claim 4, wherein the further input comprises a renewed selection of the reject.

15. The transport unit according to claim 9, wherein the one or more controllable conveyors comprise one or more belt conveyors.

16. The transport unit according to claim 9, wherein the contactless sensor comprises an optical sensor.

17. The transport unit according to claim 9, wherein the contactless sensor comprises a camera.

18. The transport unit according to claim 9, wherein the contactless sensor is configured to monitor the area of the transport section over an entire width of the area of the transport section.

19. The packaging device according to claim 10, wherein the packaging machine comprises a tray sealer.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0059] Embodiments according to the invention are described in more detail below by way of example and with reference to the following drawings, which show:

[0060] FIG. 1a: a packaging device consisting of a slicer as well as a packaging machine arranged downstream in the longitudinal direction, the passage direction through the machine, with a feeder, viewed in the side view, the transverse direction of the packaging device,

[0061] FIG. 2a: a top view of the area of the feeder and the downstream part of the trough belt with the portions already inserted into the troughs in this part of the trough belt,

[0062] FIGS. 1b, 2b: a single filled trough in side view and top view as enlargements from FIGS. 1a and 2a, respectively, with the slices of the portion in ideal position in the trough, i.e. in the desired arrangement,

[0063] FIGS. 3a1, 3a2: a view analogous to FIG. 2a with a 1st reject situation, with the reject marked in the display or already removed in the display,

[0064] FIGS. 3b, c: views analogous to FIG. 2a, with other reject situations shown with the reject marked in the display, and

[0065] FIG. 4: a flow chart for eliminating rejects from the packaging machine.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0066] FIG. 1a shows a side view of a packaging unit 500 within passage direction through the entire unita slicer 1, a feeder 21 with several conveyors 21A, 21B, 21C one behind the other in passage direction 10, as well as a packaging machine 100 and an operating unit 20 with a display 19 and a control, which as control 21* controls at least the feeder 21 or as control 500* the entire packaging unit 500.

[0067] Of the slicer 1, which is only partially shown, the cutting unit 7 is visible, as well as of the supply unit for the calibers K, the upper product guide 8 and the bottom product guide 9, between which the calibers K are held and supplied to the cutting unit 7 in a supplying direction 10 which is at an angle to the horizontal throughput direction 10 through the machine.

[0068] The blade 3, whose sharply ground cutting edge 3a defines the cutting plane 3, lies at a very short distance parallel to the underside of the plate-shaped cutting frame 5, in which for the mostly several calibers K1, K2 . . . , which are located one behind the other in the direction of view of FIG. 1a and are sliced at the same time, there is in each case one product opening 6 which is only indicated here, through which the calibers K fit very precisely, so that the circumferential edge of the cutting frame 5 and its product openings 6 form the fixed counter-edge to the cutting edge 3a of the blade 3.

[0069] Not only the cutting unit 7 and the supply unit for the calibers K are attached to 30 the base frame 2 of the slicer 1, but also, as a rule, a discharge unit 17 consisting of three discharge conveyors 17a, b, c located one behind the other in the passage direction 10, the rear-most of which in the passage direction 10, the portioning belt 17a, can be pivoted in various ways in its inclined position about a pivot axis running in the direction of view of FIG. 1a, so that it can be controlled with which angle of impact and with which trajectory and distance the slices S separated from the caliber K strike the portioning belt 17a. Since the portioning belt 17a can also be driven in a stepwise controlled manner in passage direction 10, shingled portions P can be produced on it, for example.

[0070] A trough belt 22, also running from right to left in the passage direction 10, is often supplied under the slicer 1, in each of whose troughs M a portion P consisting of several slices S is to be deposited.

[0071] In order to compensate for the height offset and also the distance between the trough belt 22 and the end of the discharge conveyor 17, which is generally horizontal, a so-called feeder 21 is connected to the last discharge conveyor 17c of the discharge unit 17. This is also at least one, in this case three conveyor belts 21A, 21B, 21C arranged one behind the other in the passage direction 10, of which in this case the first two 21A, 21B run horizontally and the last conveyor belt 21C is directed obliquely downwards and ends just above the trough belt 22 and discharges the portions P into the troughs M. The conveyor belts 21A, 21B and 21C are arranged one behind the other in the passage direction 10.

[0072] For this purpose, the feeder 21, at least its last ejecting conveyor belt 21C, and the trough belt 22 are driven at the same speed in order to prevent the portions P from folding when they are deposited, or better dropped, in the trough M. The trough belt 22 is driven at the same speed as the feeder 21, at least its last dropping conveyor belt 21C. Between the insertion of the individual portions P, the trough belt 22 and/or the feeder 21 can be stopped in each case.

[0073] The feeder 21 can also be used as a buffer.

[0074] To prevent defective portions P, i.e. rejects A, from entering the troughs M of the trough belt 22, already the portions P transported on the feeder 21 are checked.

[0075] For this purpose, a monitoring area 4 of a camera 13 is aligned at least on a part of the transport section 50, in this case extending over the two horizontally running conveyor belts 21A, 21B in longitudinal direction and extending over the entire width of the feeder 21 in transverse direction, and the video permanently recorded by this camera is reproduced on the display 19 of an operating unit 20.

[0076] The display 19 shows the viewing area 23, which also extends in longitudinal direction over a certain part of the transport section 50 and in transverse direction over the entire width of the feeder 21, as shown in FIGS. 3a1 to 3c.

[0077] The representation can be realistici.e. with recognizable individual slices and their position within the portion, in particular if the sensor is a camera 13 and the control has sufficient computing poweras shown in FIG. 3a1 in tracks SP 1 and SP2 and in the remaining FIGS. 3a2 to 3c on all tracks, or it can be merely a symbolic representation, representing a portion for example only as a rectangle, as shown in FIG. 3a1 on track SP 3, which is particularly the case if the sensor 13 is, for example, only a light barrier or a line scanner.

[0078] In the case of a just-in-time display on the display 19, the observation area 4 also corresponds to the observation area 23.1as shown in FIG. 1ain the case of a time offset of the representation on the display, the observation area 23.2 visible on the display can be partially or completely downstream of the observation area 4.

[0079] As a rule, the operator checks the video running on the display 19 or also the real portions P on the feeder 21 to see whether the portions P passing through there are faulty, i.e. rejects, or not.

[0080] Only correct portions P are allowed to pass, and only with correct portions P can it be achieved that these subsequently also lie in a target arrangement in a respective trough M of the trough belt 22, as shown in FIGS. 1b, 2b, i.e. with a predetermined target portion length 13, a predetermined target portion width 14, a predetermined left and right target edge distance 15R, 15L to the left and right edges of the trough M, and a front and rear target longitudinal distance 16a, 16b to the front and rear ends of the trough M.

[0081] Of course, the operator cannot yet see these distances to the edge of the trough in his observation area 4 on the upstream feeder 21 according to FIG. 2a, or only if they deviate very much from the nominal value, but he would notice conspicuous errors, especially within the portion, including the portion length.

[0082] Then the operator presses a stop button in the form of usually one of the operating elements 18 on the operating unit 20, whereupon at least the conveyor belts 21A, B located in the observation area 4 and/or in the display area 23, usually all the conveyor belts of the feeder 21, are stopped, and the operator can remove the reject portions A from the feeder 21.

[0083] Since he observes the portions Paccording to FIGS. 3a to 3con the display 19 of the operating unit 20, he can thereby tapping in the case of a touch-sensitive screen 19 or by clicking by means of a mouse-controlled cursor in the case of a non-touch-sensitive screen 19also mark the reject portions as rejects A, which he also physically removes from the feeder 21 beforehand or afterwards.

[0084] The portions P marked as rejects A on the display 19 by the operator or the control 21* are either displayed there by the control after marking differently from the correct portionsshown as dashed lines in FIGS. 3a1, 3b, 3cor deleted from the time of marking on the display 19 as shown analogously to FIG. 3a1 in FIG. 3a2, in any case, at the latest when it is no longer shown on the display 19, preferably as soon as it is marked, it is also deleted from the memory of the control 21* of the feeder 21 or of the control 500* of the entire packaging device 500, which includes the feeder 21.

[0085] In this way, the control 21* is able to automatically refill the gaps created by the removed reject(s) A on the feeder 21, if necessary, so that acorrectportion P is also available for each trough M at the discharge point.

[0086] Instead of the operator, the control system 21* or 500* can also automatically detect and mark the reject, provided that it has a sufficiently well functioning image processing system, in particular supported by artificial intelligence, for optically detectable reject situations. The control then marks the reject on the screen and stops at least the conveyor belts visible on the display 19, i.e. those located in the display area 23 and/or those located in the monitoring area 4, so that the operator knows which is the reject A that he must remove from the feeder 21.

[0087] The control 21* can also mark portions P as rejects A which do not represent a visually recognizable reject situation, but which have been detected by other previous monitoring measures on the part of the control 21*, for example an incorrectly weighed portion detected by previous automatic weighing or slices in which an excessively high fat content has been detected due to scanning, e.g. of the cut surface of the caliber.

[0088] The visually recognizable errors that lead to rejects can be very different:

[0089] FIG. 3a1, for example, shows a reject situation in which the portions P on the uppermost track SP1 are obviously rejects A, because the distances between the slices within the portions on track SP1 are uneven compared to the correct portions on the tracks SP2 and SP3 below, and the portions P there are also too far forward in the passage direction 10 compared to the portions P on the parallel other tracks.

[0090] FIG. 3a2 shows in a representation analogous to FIG. 3a1 the representation on the display 19, if by marking portions as rejects it is caused that the control does not show these portions on the display 19 any more starting from the marking.

[0091] Such a reject A present only on one track and a gap existing after its removal can be closed by the control automaticallyor also caused by manual input of the operator at the operating unit 20only if the upstream slicer 1 can be controlled track-individually, i.e. with the help of empty cuts on the other tracks only portions on track SP1 can be supplied subsequently, in order to fill the gaps there after removal of the reject A, before the depositing of portions in the trough belt 22 is started again.

[0092] Of course, since obviously all portions arriving on track SP1 currently show this error, the cause of this system error on track SP1 should be searched for and eliminated beforehand so that correct portions P are delivered in the correct position on feeder 21 to fill the gaps on track SP1.

[0093] Filling the gaps on feeder 21 is only possible if feeder 21, i.e. its conveyor belts, is also divided into individual tracks that can be controlled separately and independently of each other. If this is not the case, either the troughs M in the trough belt 22, in this case three adjacent troughs in each case, are filled in several steps if necessary, or unfilled troughs M in the trough belt 22 are accepted.

[0094] In contrast, FIG. 3b shows a reject situation in which, from a certain point in time, only defective reject portions A are delivered to all tracks SP1, SP2, SP3. In this case, there is a system error on all tracks of the slicer or its discharge conveyor unit 17, which must be determined and corrected so that correct portions can then be produced again on all tracks.

[0095] The gaps on the feeder 21 caused by the removal of the reject(s) A can be closed more easily with a reject A running over the entire width of the feeder 21, in that the conveyor belt, in this case 21C, on which the last correct portions lie, remains stopped or is at least driven more slowly, and the one or more conveyor belts 21A, 21B upstream in the passage direction 10 are refilled with correct portions P by subsequently produced correct portions before the filling of the trough belt 22 is started again.

[0096] FIG. 3c, on the other hand, shows a reject situation in which only a single portion P on only one track SP1 and also on this track was not defective several times in succession, i.e. it represents reject A. In this case, the operator or the control system will react with a warning message.

[0097] In this case, the operator or the control also stops the feeder 21 and removes this single reject portion A and also marks it as removed on the display 21, but in most cases no troubleshooting measures are carried out on the slicer 1 or its discharge unit 17, in particular its portioning belt 17a, since it was obviously not a system error, but the reject A was caused by a one-time event and obviously will not occur again.

[0098] FIG. 4 shows a flow chart of the operations described above:

[0099] First, the reject A must be recognized as such, then the feeder 21 must be stopped, and then the reject A must be marked as such on the display 19.

[0100] These three steps can be carried out by the operator or by the control if it has a sufficiently good automatic reject detection system, for example by means of image processing connected to the camera 13.

[0101] However, the control system can mark a portion that it suspects to be a reject merely as an indication to the operator on the display 19in this case preferably in a different display mode than the portions already reliably marked as rejectsand leave the final decision to the operator, who must confirm this indication marking by further touching or clicking with the cursor.

[0102] Subsequently, the reject A marked on the display 19 must be removed from the feeder 21, i.e. cleared away, which is usually done by the operator, since automatic, mechanical removal by means of a robot or a pusher, for example, is time-consuming and involves the risk of leaving residues on the feeder 21.

[0103] The operator then confirms that the reject A has been completely removed, i.e. that all the reject marked on the display 19 has been removed from the feeder 21.

[0104] The feeder 21 can then be restarted, the time being determined either by the operator pressing a separate start button for this purpose, for example, or the feeder being started automatically by the control system, usually immediately after, or at a fixed time offset after, confirmation that the reject A has been completely cleared has been entered into the operating unit 20.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMERALS

[0105] 1 slicing machine, slicer [0106] 1* control [0107] 2 base frame [0108] 3 blades [0109] 3 rotation axis [0110] 3 blade plane, cutting plane [0111] 3a cutting edge [0112] 4 monitoring area [0113] 5 cutting frame [0114] 6 product opening [0115] 7 cutting unit [0116] 8 upper product guide, upper guide belt [0117] 9 bottom product guide, lower guide belt [0118] 10 passage direction through machine, longitudinal direction [0119] 10 supply direction [0120] 11 1st transverse direction (width transport unit) [0121] 12 2nd transverse direction, vertical [0122] 13 target portion length [0123] 14 target portion width [0124] 15L, 15R target edge distance [0125] 16 target length distance [0126] 17 discharge conveyor unit [0127] 17a, b, c portioning belt, discharge conveyor [0128] 18 operating element [0129] 19 display [0130] 20 operating unit [0131] 21 feeder [0132] 21A, B, C conveyor [0133] 22 trough belt [0134] 23.1, 23.2 display area [0135] 100 packaging machine [0136] 500 packaging device [0137] A reject [0138] K caliber [0139] M trough, packaging trough [0140] P portion [0141] R edge [0142] S slice