There are many circumstances in which components are produced in bulk by separation (e. g. by cutting) from a sheet-like stock of base material, and it is frequently the case that the sheet stock could be more efficiently used if differently configured components intended for incorporation into different products and/or for distribution to different customers could be separated from the same sheet. Greater efficiency of base stock usage reduces wastage, and thus offers both economic and environmental advantages.

Considerable difficulties arise in implementing such arrangements in practice, however, since the components separated from the sheet have to be distributed, within the production facility, to locations appropriate to their end usage or their supply destination, and the accurate selection

and placement of components, whether carried out manually or with some degree of automation, is extremely difficult to ensure. There are many reasons for this, but in part the problems are due to the fact that many components are quite complex in shape, yet of similar appearance, (for example, oppositely"handed"components) and it is difficult for human operators or automatic picker devices to select with confidence components intended for different purposes and/or customers.

It is an object of the invention to provide a location and identification system which addresses the difficulties outlined above.

According to the invention there is provided a system for location of items within a facility; the system comprising providing a computer device with information as to said items and as to a location within said facility to which said items should be moved for use, storage or distribution, and illumination means, operated under the control of said computer device, capable of illuminating said items and of illuminating, for each item, said location.

In preferred embodiments, the items have been separated from

a common sheet of material, prior to movement to said location. The items may be separated from said sheet in a predetermined sequence.

Preferably the computer device is in communication with, and may beneficially form a part of, the mechanism used to separate (e. g. by cutting) the items from the sheet. By this means, the computer device is automatically apprised of the cutting profiles and the order in which the items are cut from the sheet.

Preferably the illumination means comprises at least one overhead mounted laser device, preferably arranged, in operation, to project light on to said items, illuminating each in turn, and thereby indicating the item to be selected.

The illumination may take the form of a particular standard shape, such as a dot, a circle or a cross, for example, but preferably it takes the form of a scaled down replica of the shape of the item itself; the scaling down being sufficient to ensure that the mimic can be accommodated wholly upon an exposed surface of the subject item. This provides confirmation that the correct item is being selected.

It is further preferred that the illumination means

illuminates, again with any chosen form of lighted shape, a location to which the selected item is to be removed. This ensures that an operative knows where to take or transport the selected item. In this respect, the illumination means may use the same illumination device to illuminate the chosen location as was used to illuminate the selected item. In this event, the device itself may be movable so as to illuminate both the item and the location alternately, or the required motion may be imparted by means of movable optical components such as mirrors or prisms. In either event, it is preferred that the rate of alternate illumination of the selected item and its chosen location is sufficiently high that there is no perceivable flicker in the illumination.

In an alternative arrangement, different illumination devices can be used to illuminate the selected item and its chosen location.

It is preferred, in any event, that the illumination of the chosen location of a selected item (which location may, for example, be upon a palette designed to receive several items for onward transport to a customer) takes the form of the outline of the selected item in its preferred orientation.

By this means, the storage of items on a carrier such as a

palette can be optimised, and an operative is aware of how the item should be orientated before it is laid down. This is advantageous from several standpoints, not the least of which is that potentially heavy items do not have to be repeatedly repositioned upon a carrier in order to store them efficiently for transport.

It will be appreciated that, in general, there may be several item areas and storage locations (carriers or palettes, for example) associated with different customers and/or different products distributed around the facility, and thus that the illumination device or devices may need to be capable of illuminating various storage locations within the facility.

It will thus be understood that, in general, an operator intending to work at a given station will need to provide, to the system, a starting point for the work.

This may be achieved, for example, by the operator pressing a button adjacent a particular area of items, and connected to the computing device, or by means of a reflective means, such as a facet, for example, on a ring, bracelet or other item of apparel provided for this purpose to the operator, interacting with light generated by either a general purpose illuminating device, or by an illuminating device used to

illuminate the items and/or the chosen locations, which is arranged, when not in specific use, to periodically scan all potential work sites. In any event, in this embodiment, a sensitive means is provided to sense the reflected light and advise the computer device accordingly. In this respect, it can be advantageous for the light generated by the illuminating device to be modulated at a characteristic frequency (too high to cause visible flicker) which can be used to reliably distinguish the light reflected from facets from light originating from other sources.

In a modification which is considered inventive of itself, the system is also configured to associate those sheet remnants from which items have been separated, but which still represent viable source material for further items, with storage locations at the facility, whereby a remnant and a storage location therefor, selected by the system or manually chosen, are illuminated by the illumination means.

The identity of the remnant, details of the items already separated therefrom and its storage location are recorded by the computer device so that, thereafter, the system is capable of recommending a particular remnant for use in the production of certain items, and of illuminating the storage location of the recommended remnant so as to guide an

operator to it.

In order that the invention may be clearly understood and readily carried into effect, one embodiment thereof will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, the single figure of which shows, in schematic perspective view, certain elements of a system in accordance with one example of the invention.

Referring now to the drawing, a system, generally shown at 1, comprises a computer device 2 having various inputs and control outputs, and illumination devices 3 and 4 in the form of overhead-mounted laser devices with imaging optics 5 and 6 respectively, controlled by the computer device 2, and optical scanning components 7 and 8 respectively, also controlled by the computer device 2.

The illuminating devices 3 and 4, together with their respective imaging optics and scanning components are mounted in an operative environment 9 such as a sheet metal fabrication facility. The computer device 2 may be provided within the facility 9, or it may be remote therefrom.

In this example, the illumination devices 3 and 4 comprise

visible light laser generators, and they may generate light of the same or different wavelengths. Again in this example, though not necessarily, the illumination device 3 is intended to selectively illuminate components or items in item or component areas such as 10, at or near sheets from which they have been cut, and the illuminating device 4 is intended to individually illuminate as appropriate respective locations such as 11, within the facility 9 to which the selected components are to be placed; for example on palettes which are intended to be transported away from the facility 9 in due course. The components may, but are not necessarily, moved in the same sequence that they are separated from the sheet.

Thus the light from device 3 needs to be capable of selective direction towards any area of the facility 9 at which components might be located, and likewise the light from device 4 needs to be capable of direction towards any area of the facility 9 at which palettes or other receiving devices may be located. In this example, such directional capability is achieved by means of the optical scanning components 7,8 (such as galvanometer-or servomotor-controlled mirrors) but it could alternatively be achieved by effecting bodily movement of the devices 3 and 4, by means of servomotors or

otherwise. In any event, the directional movement is achieved under computer control.

In operation, the illuminating device 3 and the associated imaging optics 5 are energised, under computer control, to project a desired light image upon a component at a location 10 where a processed sheet of material has been positioned for manual unloading. The projected image may, as aforesaid, be a simple pattern such as a spot, a circle or a cross.

Alternatively, and preferably, the image is more sophisticated, such as a replica, on a reduced scale, of the shape of the illuminated component itself. Other alternative images comprise alpha numeric graphics reproducing the relevant part number of the component, or a linear code, such as a bar code, which can be scanned by an operator to obtain further data about the component in question.

It will be appreciated that the computer device 2 has been exposed to the sequencing of work carried out on the sheet and thus has recorded therein the order in which the components are separated. The computer device 2 can be configured to make use of this information when determining the sequence in which components are to be illuminated and the addresses, within the facility 9, of locations such as 11

to which the selected components are to be moved, and which are illuminated, with appropriate timing, by the illumination device 4.

As mentioned previously, the illumination device 4 and its associated imaging optics 6 are preferably configured to project onto the desired receiving location of a receiving surface (for example that of a palette) for a given component, a pattern indicative not only of the shape of that component, but also its orientation for most efficient placement, bearing in mind the overall distribution of components that the location is intended to receive.

Typically, an operative will commence a cycle of work by pressing a button such as 12 near the location 10 of components cut from a sheet, in response to which the computer device 2 causes the illuminating device 3 to project its light, in a selected pattern defined, under computer control, by the imaging optics 5, on to the first component to be selected. At the same time, the computer device 2 causes the illuminating device 4 to project its light, in a selected pattern defined, again under computer control, by the imaging optics 6, onto the palette or other receiving surface at the location 11 to which the selected component is

to be transported.

When the selected component has been placed, in its correct position and with the correct orientation, upon its correct palette, the operative presses the button 12 again and the process repeats until all of the components cut from that particular sheet have been removed and stacked correctly on their palettes.

Instead of using buttons such as 12, the operators may wear something (e. g. a ring or a wrist band) formed with one or more reflective facets intended to reflect illuminating light to some convenient location for sensing and observation. In this event, the light reflected from the facets may or may not come from the devices 3 or 4 ; if preferred, a dedicated light source can be used for this purpose. In any event, with such a modification, it is preferred that the relevant light source is modulated so as to aid the system in distinguishing the desired reflected light from other light in the facility 9.

Advantageously, as mentioned above, the system can be extended to control the storage and retrieval for use of remnant sheet material. In this respect, on each occasion

when a remnant sheet is removed from a cutting machine, the computer device 2 instructs one or other of the illumination devices 3,4 to illuminate a storage location, for that remnant sheet, in (for example) a vertical storage arrangement.

The CNC programming system can use the remnant sheets at will, depending on what has been cut already and upon the size and shape of the new components to be cut, and provides suitable input to the computer device 2 to cause illumination of the storage location for the appropriate remnant sheet.

The system of the invention thus provides the essential link that allows a computer system to maintain up-to-date information on and control the movement of components, materials and operatives in a factory or similar environment.

Accordingly, it can be used to provide a connection between material resource planning systems and other computer systems, such as those used for CNC machine programming and the physical environments to which they apply.

The invention is by no means limited in its application to sheet metal working facilities. It can be applied to any situation in which automatic identification and indication of

position of an item is required. In this respect, examples of other applications include:- identifying and manual unloading of clothing patterns; indicating a precise location at which it is desired to place an item for quick and accurate manual storage ; indicating the exact storage location of items for rapid manual retrieval ; and locating an object which requires to be rapidly moved to another location within a facility.

It should be understood that the items/components/objects being moved in the present invention could include for example, machinery parts, people, tooling, materials indeed anything that requires reliable movement from one location to another.