Abstract: A method for demand-controlled supply to and disposal away from production stations. Self-propelled transport vehicles are moved on a rail within an overhead storage and transport system. A transport unit is requested by a transfer unit which forms a linking member between the storage and transport system and an associated production station. A transport task is assigned by a material flow control to a transport vehicle. The transport vehicle is moved in the transport plane on the rail from a start position to the transfer unit of a production station initiating the transport task. The transport unit is transferred to the transfer unit. The full or empty transport unit is lowered by a lift into a transfer plane located below a transport plane. The transport vehicle is released for the next transport task after the transfer of the full or empty transport unit to the transfer unit.

Abstract: Successive collapsed cardboard blanks which can be erected to accommodate, for example, arrays of cigarette cartons are supplied from a source (such as a magazine for one or more piles of superimposed randomly distributed properly oriented and misoriented blanks) to a packing machine along a path wherein the orientations of successive blanks are monitored and the misoriented blanks are reoriented so that the packing machine receives blanks each of which is in an optimum orientation for erection and subsequent reception of arrays of commodities. The arrangement for monitoring and, if necessary, correcting the orientation of successive blanks can include pneumatic and/or other conveyors, mobile props, mobile pushers, an upright chute and a vertically movable supporting platform for stacks of monitored and (if necessary) reoriented blanks.

Abstract: Apparatus for introducing fresh bobbins containing supplies of convoluted web material into and for evacuating expired bobbins from web consuming machines has a reservoir for a horizontal row of coaxial fresh bobbins and a conveyor system for delivery of selected fresh bobbins directly to one of several stub shafts on a turntable which is indexible about a horizontal axis parallel to the common axis of the fresh bobbins in the reservoir. The conveying system includes an elevator which is movable into the reservoir from below to engage and lift a selected fresh bobbin and to thereupon transport it directly onto the selected stub shaft. An expired bobbin, normally in the form of a hollow core, is engaged by a gripper which moves it off the respective stub shaft and into a magazine which is adjacent and parallel to the reservoir.

Abstract: In a system for manufacturing and packaging cigarettes each production unit comprising a cigarette making machine and packaging machines has associated therewith a supply station to which bobbins of raw materials are supplied, that is tipping paper, cigarette paper, carton wrapping paper, inner frame material, box blanks, pack blanks, metallized paper and cellophane or polypropylene, this being done on pallets allocated for each single article. The supply station is spanned by a portal. A portal robot movable longitudinally and transversely of the portal is provided for handling the bobbins of raw materials. Transport means are likewise provided for conveying the raw materials to the individual machines of the system and a bobbin changer is associated with each individual supply station for bobbins. The portal robot comprises an automatic tool changer.

Abstract: An electromechanical scale wherein the platform transmits a load to lateral surfaces at one end of the carrier of a strain gauge and the other end of the carrier is affixed to the base of the scale. This contributes to a reduction of overall height of the scale. The carrier has a median portion with a web in the central symmetry plane of the carrier, and such web supports one or more strip-shaped resistors or semiconductors of the strain gauge. The ends of the carrier can be permanently or separably connected to the platform and/or to the base.