WO2001078195A1

WO2001078195A1 - Electrical strip for order filling system

Info

Publication number: WO2001078195A1
Application number: PCT/US2001/012052
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mark Hein
Original assignee: Real Time Solutions Inc
Current assignee: Real Time Solutions Inc
Priority date: 2000-04-07
Filing date: 2001-04-06
Publication date: 2001-10-18
Anticipated expiration: 2002-10-07
Also published as: AU2001255350A1

Abstract

An electrical strip (203) having electrical conductor (205) rods attached to an insulative strip (207) are mounted within a protective housing (411) or on a base (423) mounted along the fronts of storage shelves. The electrical strip is used to connect order filling system electronic components (531) to a central computer (351). The electrical components (531) including: lights (741), buttons (743), keypads (745) and alphanumerical displays (745) are in electrical contact with the conductor rods and may be mounted anywhere along the length of the housing (411). Each of the electrical components has an addressable integrated circuit (533) which allows the central computer to individually control the electrical components and receive signals from specific components through the common electrical conductor rods.

Description

ELECTRICAL STRIP FOR ORDER FILLING SYSTEM

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Manufacturing companies and distribution centers commonly have warehouses in which items are stored until they are needed. When specific items are needed, workers gather the items by hand. In order to accurately and efficiently gather the items order filling systems have been developed which identify the correct item to be picked. These order filling systems may include a central computer, visual displays and keypads mounted tliroughout a storage area. The visual displays may include lights indicating the item to be picked and alphanumeric displays for transmitting information from the central computer to the worker. The keypad is used by the worker to transmit information to the computer.

Real Time Solutions Inc. has developed the EASYpick^® order filling system that

utilizes a computer which is electrically connected to displays and keypads mounted on storage racks tliroughout a storage area. The displays and keyboards allow workers to communicate with the computer while picking inventory. As workers travel through the

storage area, the EASYpick^® computer transmits signals that illuminate lights mounted

on the storage racks. These lights indicate the location of the next item to be picked and guide the worker through the storage area. An alpha-numeric display mounted in the proximity of the item is controlled by the computer and indicates the quantity of items to be removed. After the required quantity of items is picked, the worker presses a confirmation button on a keypad to inform the computer of the specific item picked. The computer then informs the worker of the location of the next item to be picked until all items have been gathered. Other companies have developed similar order filling systems. Referring to Fig. 1, a schematic diagram of the prior art EASYpick^® system 100

is illustrated. The central computer 103 is connected by a network 105 to multiple controllers 107 which transmit signals between the central computer 103 and components mounted tliroughout the storage area. The central computer 103 transmits signals through the controllers 107 to visual indicators 109 which directs workers to the specific items to be picked from the storage area. The central computer 103 also transmits signals through the controllers 107 to alphanumeric displays 111 which may inform the workers of: the description of the item to be picked and the number of items to be picked. Buttons/keypads 113 are mounted tliroughout the storage area for workers to send information through the controllers 107 back to the central computer 103. The button/keypad 113 can be used to inform the computer 103 that the required item has been picked, that there is a lack of inventory to fill the order or any other problems.

A problem with installing an order filling system in a storage area like the

EASYpick^® system is that every electronic component, light, button/keypad and alphanumeric display must be individually wired to the controllers which are wired to the computer. An order filling system is typically configured with electronic components mounted on the front surface of the storage shelves and all of the wiring for each of the components is run to one end of the shelves. Thus, a substantial amount of wiring is required to install an order filling system. Another problem is that once the electronic component is installed into the storage area it can not be easily moved because the dedicated wiring is cut to a specific length. Thus, substantial rewiring is also required to move the electronic components.

What is needed is a low cost, durable electrical strip for connecting inventory picking system components to a central computer without individual wiring that can be mounted in a storage area. Although electrical strips have been developed which provide common electrical conductors for interconnecting electrical components, these common conductor electrical strips have not been used with computer controlled order filling systems.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is an electrical strip having multiple exposed conductor rods mounted on an insulative strip for electrically connecting order filling system components to a central computer. The conductor rods have low electrical resistivity and will not break or buckle when the electrical strip is bent. The electrical strip may be mounted within a housing by various means including adhesives, screws, engagement with a groove in the housing or any other known fastening mechanism.

The electrical strip and housing may be mounted along the length of storage area shelves within easy access of workers using the order filling system. The housing is designed to allow inventory system components to snap onto any location along the housing and be in electrical contact with the electrical strip. All of the electrical strips in a storage area may be connected to the central computer. The inventory filling system components may include: lights, alphanumeric displays, keypads, transmitters, receivers, radio frequency tags and any other components that are compatible with an order filling system. Each of the components mounted on the electrical strip has an addressable integrated circuit, which allows the central computer to individually control each of the components. The addressable circuit may communicate with the central computer via serial or multiplex protocols.

A system using the inventive electrical strips to connect order filling components is a lower cost system with increased installation and operational flexibility. Order filling components can be placed anywhere along the electrical strip and do not have to be individually wired to the central computer. The components can also be simply repositioned on the electrical strip without rewiring.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is herein described, by way of example only, with reference to embodiments of the present invention illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of the prior art EASYpick^® system; Fig. 2 illustrates a top view of the electrical strip;

Fig. 3 A illustrates a cross section of the electrical strip;

Fig. 3B illustrates a cross section of the electrical strip;

Fig. 4A illustrates a cross section of the housing; Fig. 4B illustrates a cross section of the housing and electrical conductors;

Fig. 4C illustrates a cross section of the housing and electrical strip;

Fig. 5 illustrates a cross section of an order filling system component;

Fig. 6 illustrates a cross section of the electrical strip, housing and component assembled; Fig. 7 illustrates a front view of the electrical strip, housing and components mounted on a shelf unit; and

Fig. 8 illustrates a cross section view of the electrical strip, housing and component mounted on a shelf unit.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention addresses the above and other problems associated with

wiring shelves for order filling systems including but not limited to the EASYpick^™

system. The inventive electrical strip allows order filling system components to share common electrical connections. Referring to Figure 2, a top view of the inventive electrical strip 203 is illustrated. The electrical strip 203 includes conductors 205 mounted in parallel along the length of the insulative strip 207. The conductors 205 may be used to transmit electrical signals from a central computer and/or electrical power along the length of the electrical strip 203. Figures 3 A and 3B are cross section views of the electrical strip 203 showing the conductors 205. The insulative strip 207 is made of an electrical insulator material. In the preferred embodiment, the insulative strip 207 is flexible extruded plastic, however the insulative strip 207 may alternatively be, ceramic, fiberglass, dielectric or any other suitable non-conductive material. The insulative strip 207 has a constant width and may be made to any length by any known manufacturing method.

The conductors 205 may be any electrically conductive material. In the preferred embodiment the conductors 205 are copper, but may also be aluminum, silver, gold, brass, steel or any other conductive material. When copper, aluminum, brass, steel or other conductive metals are used as the conductors 205 a low resistance corrosion protection layer should be applied to exposed surfaces. In Figure 3, the conductors 205 are illustrated as being circular in cross section, however many other shapes are suitable including: thin foil, oval, triangular, rectangular, polygon or any other suitable cross section shape. Similarly, the conductors 205 are illustrated as being solid but may alternatively comprise a multiplicity of strands bundled together.

Referring to Figure 3A, in the preferred embodiment, the electrical strips 203 are fabricated with conductors 205 which are strips of metal foil that are cut to the desired width and attached in parallel to the insulative strip 207 with an adhesive. The electrical strips 203 may be stored in rolls and cut to the desired length according to the installation site requirements.

Alternatively, as illustrated in Figure 3B, the electrical strip 203 may have conductors 205 which are rods embedded in the insulative strip 207. There are several methods of attaching conductors 205 to the insulative strip 207. The conductors 205 may be heating and may be pressed into the insulative strip 207 such that the plastic melts at the contact areas. When the melted plastic material solidifies, the solid conductors 203 are partially embedded and security attached to the insulative strip 207. The conductors 205 may also be coextruded with the insulative strip 207, such that the insulative strip 207 is formed in contact with the conductors 205. The insulative strip 207 may alternatively be fabricated with grooves and each conductor 205 may be adhesively or otherwise attached within each of the grooves.

The electrical strip 207 is typically mounted in a housing or on a base upon which inventory picking system components can be mounted. Figure 4A illustrates a cross section view of the housing 411. The sides 413 of the housing 411 have flanges 419 which are used to mount the system components on the housing 411. The electrical strip 203 may be attached to the flat surface 471 in the housing 411 with adhesives, screws, rivets or any other known fastening mechanism.

Referring to Figure 4B, in an alternate embodiment, the housing 411 may be made of an insulative material and the conductors 205 may be attached directly to the housing 411. In this embodiment an insulative strip is not required. The conductors 205 may be attached to the insulative plastic housing 411: with an adhesive, by heating and pressing the conductors 205 into the housing 411 such that the plastic melts at the contact areas, by coextrasion or by any other suitable means. Figure 4C illustrates a cross section view of an alternate embodiment of the housing 411. hi this embodiment, the housing 411 has flanges 481 under which the electrical strip 203 is mounted. The electrical strip 203 may either slide below the flanges 481 through one end of the housing 411 or snapped into position. The electrical strip 203 may be snapped into the housing 411 by placing one edge of the electrical sfrip 203 below one of the flanges 481 and deforming the electrical strip 203 such that the other edge slides under the opposite flange 481.

Figure 4D illustrate yet another cross section view of an alternative embodiment where the electrical strip 203 is mounted on a base 423 which does not have sidewalls. In this embodiment, the order filling system components or covers define a recessed area and are attached to the base 423 by flanges, grooves, screws or any other fastening means. The electrical strip is located within the recessed area of the system components or covers. Figure 5 illustrates a cross section view of a component 531 of an inventory pick system. The component 531 has flanges 539 which engage the flanges of the housing (not shown). The component 531 may include: lights, alphanumeric displays, keypads, transmitters, receivers, radio frequency tags and any other components that are compatible with an order filling system. The component 531 has electrical contacts 535 which are located at the bottom of the component 531 and electrically connect the component 531 to the elecfrical strip (not shown).

As discussed, many components 531 may be electrically connected to a single electrical strip (not shown), which is electrically connected to a central computer (not shown). In order for the central computer to transmit signals to individual components 531, each component 531 has an addressable integrated circuit 533 which allows the component 531 to distinguish addressed control signals transmitted from the central computer. The addressable integrated circuits 533 also encode signals transmitted from the keypads or buttons so that the cenfral computer may receive the signals and determine the sources of the signals.

The addressable integrated circuits may utilize several well known methods of operation including: Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detect (CSMNCD) or Poll/Select. In either method, the data packets or messages transmitted between the addressable integrated circuits or the between the addressable integrated circuits and the host computer include an address signal which identifies the intended recipient of the message. CSMNCD is a protocol for carrier transmission access. In this method, a device such as an addressable integrated circuit or host computer can send messages over the electrical strip at any time. The devices monitor the electrical strip and sense whether the signal transmission conductor of the electrical strip is idle and available for use. If signal transmission conductor is idle, the device begins to transmit its message. If another device has tried to send at the same time, a collision is said to occur and both messages are discarded. Each device then waits a random amount of time and retries until successful in getting its message sent.

Poll/Select is another type of electrical signal protocol in which the host computer controls the transmission of data to the devices. The default state of the system is for all of the addressable integrated circuits to be waiting for a message from the host computer. The host computer transmits a 'Poll' message which is received by all of the addressable integrated circuits. Each addressable integrated circuit decodes the 'Poll' message and based on the address portion of the message, determines whether it is the intended recipient of the message. The addressable integrated circuit which is the intended recipient of the message is said to be 'Selected' by the 'Poll' message and responds to the host computer by transmitting a message containing the information requested by the host computer. Although the addressable integrated circuits are described as operating with serial process signals, it is well known that the conductive strip is also compatible with a multiplexed process signals or other signal protocols used to individually control multiple components sharing common electrical connections.

Figure 6 illustrates cross sections of the elecfrical strip 203, housing 411 and component 531 assembled together. The electrical strip 203 is attached to the housing 411 and is used to transmit signals between the central computer (not shown) and the component 531. The electrical contacts 535 may be spring loaded such that when the component 531 is attached to the housing 411, a spring force holds the electrical contacts 535 against the conductors 205 producing a low resistance electrical connection. The order filling system may typically utilize many components 531 all connected to a common electrical strip 203 and mounted to a single housing 411. To attach the component 531 to the housing 411, the side walls 413 or the component 531 may be flexed so that flanges 539 of the components 531 can engage the flanges 419 of the housing 411.

In other embodiments of the present invention, alternative groove and flange configurations may be used to connect the components and covers to the housing or the base, for example flanges in the housing or base may engage grooves in the component. Further, the component may be attached to the housing or base by different mechanisms including: screws, adhesives, Nelcro, elastic bands, tapes, crimping, welding or any other well known attachment mechanism. In the preferred embodiment, the components are attached to the housing or base with a simple releasable mechanism which allows the component to be easily repaired, replaced or moved.

Referring to Figure 7, the components 531 are illustrated mounted to the front of a storage area shelf 771. The components 531 include: lights 741, buttons 743, keypads 745, alphanumeric displays 747 and other electrical devices. All of the components 531 are individually controlled by a central computer 351 which is also connected to the electrical strip (not shown). Non-functional covers 731 are attached to the housing to shield the electrical strip from exposure at sections of the housing that are not covered by components 531. Figure 8 illustrates a cross section view of a component 531 mounted on a housing 411 which is mounted on the front of a storage area shelf 771. As discussed, the component 531 has electrical contacts 535 which are electrically connected to the electrical strip 203. The electrical sfrip 203 is mounted in the housing 411 which is attached to the storage area shelf 771 with screws, adhesives, Velcro, rivets, welding material or any other suitable fastening mechanism. Other components 531 mounted along the housing 411 are similarly electrically connected in parallel to the electrical strip 203.

Because all order picking system components share common electrical conductor rods, there is no need to connect each of the components to the central computer with dedicated wiring. Thus, when an order picking system is installed, electrical strips can simply be installed on all of the required shelves without regard to wiring requirements of the components to be mounted on the shelves. Because dedicated component wiring is not required the order picking system installation time is substantially decreased when the inventive electrical sfrip is used. Similarly, maintenance of the order filling system is greatly simplified because broken components can simply be removed and repaired or replaced without rewiring the entire length of the housing. Further if the storage area is reorganized in the future, the order picking system components can simply be moved to facilitate the relocation of inventory items.

In the foregoing, an electrical strip for an order filling system has been described. Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary

embodiments including the EASYpick system, it will be evident that various

modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the claims. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

Claims

What is claimed is: 1. An electrical strip comprising: an insulative sfrip having a length and a width; and a multiplicity of substantially parallel conductor rods at least partially embedded within the insulative strip; wherein the multiplicity of substantially parallel conductor rods is substantially aligned with the length of the insulative sfrip.

2. The electrical strip of claim 1, wherein the multiplicity of metal conductor rods have a circular cross section.

3. The electrical strip of claim 1, wherein the multiplicity of metal conductors are embedded into the insulative strip by partially melting the insulative strip.

4. The electrical strip of claim 1, wherein the insulative strip is plastic.

5. An electrical connector apparatus comprising: the elecfrical strip of claim 1, and a housing having a recessed area defined by two side walls and a third wall; wherein the insulative strip is mounted in the recessed area of the housing.

6. An inventory picking system comprising the elecfrical connector apparatus of claim 5, and an electrical component in electrical contact with at least one of the multiplicity of substantially parallel conductor rods.

7. An inventory picking system comprising: an electrical strip having an insulative strip and a multiplicity of conductors attached to the insulative strip; a multiplicity of electrical components each having an addressable integrated circuit, wherem the multiplicity of electrical components are in elecfrical contact with at least one of the multiplicity of conductors; and a computer having an inventory picking program connected to the electrical strip for transmitting a signal through at least one of the multiplicity of conductors.

8. The inventory picking system of claim 7, wherein the multiplicity of conductors are made of metal and attached to the insulative strip with an adhesive.

9. The inventory picking system of claim 7, further comprising a housing having a recessed area defined by two side walls and a third wall, wherein the insulative strip is mounted within the recessed area of the housing.

10. The inventory picking system of claim 7, further comprising a base having a planar surface, wherein the insulative strip is mounted on the planar surface of the base.

11. The inventory picking system of claim 7, wherein a control signal is transmitted through at least one of the multiplicity of conductors and received by the at least one of the multiplicity of elecfrical components.

12. The inventory picking system of claim 7, wherein at least one of the multiplicity of electrical components is an alphanumeric display or a light.

13. The inventory picking system of claim 7 wherein the computer is programmed to confrol at least one of the multiplicity of electrical components such that a worker is directed to at least one inventory item.

14. A method of installing an inventory picking system comprising the steps: providing a computer having an inventory picking program; providing an electrical strip having a multiplicity of conductors; electrically connecting the elecfrical sfrip to the computer; electrically connecting a multiplicity of electrical components each having an addressable integrated circuit to at least one of the multiplicity of conductors.

15. The method of installing an inventory picking system of claim 14 further comprising the steps: providing a base having a planar surface; mounting the electrical strip on the planar surface of the base; mounting the base in an inventory storage area; and attaching the multiplicity of electrical components to the base.

16. The method of installing an inventory picking system of claim 15 wherein the base comprises a flange or a groove for attaching the multiplicity of electrical components to the base.

17. The method of installing an inventory picking system of claim 15 wherein the multiplicity of elecfrical components are secured to the base with a plurality of screws.

18. The method of installing an inventory picking system of claim 14 further comprising the steps: providing a housing having a recessed area defined by two side walls and a third wall; mounting the elecfrical strip in the recessed area of the housing; mounting the base in an inventory storage area; and attaching the multiplicity of electrical components to the housing.

19. The method of installing an inventory picking system of claim 18 wherein the two side walls of the housing each have a flange or a groove for attaching the multiplicity of elecfrical components to the housing.

20. The method of installing an inventory picking system of claim 18 wherein the coverplate is secured to the housing with a plurality of screws.