JPH10217638A - Booklet sorting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a booklet sorting device which jogs stacked sheets and applies paste to one of the lateral faces of the stack after jogging, and further, separates the stack into booklets to perform an operation to sort the booklets by addresses by one and the same the device. SOLUTION: This booklet sorting device is equipped with a sheet jogging device which jogs sheets of a stack of sheets 1 by giving vibration to the stack 1 deposited on a lower face plate, a pasting unit 20 which holds down the stack 1 after sheet jogging from above with the help of a plate-like member and at the same time, and erects the sheet jogging device upright with one of the lateral faces of the stack 1 set as a lower face and applies paste to the lower lateral face of the stack 1 thus erected by exposing the face, a booklet separating device which separates the stack 1 with the spine pasted tightly, and a sorting device which sorts booklets obtained by separation by address.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention generally relates to an apparatus for aligning paper by vibrating a stack of sheets as unit sheets, and binding one side of the sheet stack after the paper alignment by applying glue. The present invention relates to a booklet separating apparatus including a gluing unit to be in a state, a booklet separating apparatus that separates a bound paper back glue part from a predetermined location to form a booklet, and a sorting apparatus that sorts separated sheets by destination and the like. However, as a specific application, it is suitable as a form processing device handled in a bank, an insurance business, etc., and in these industries, the back of a return form processed on that day and separated for each unit is aligned. After pasting, it is separated into unit forms again,
This is the most suitable device for further sorting.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a business such as a bank and an insurance business, various forms are handled.
In order to settle the bills between the head offices, work is performed in which the forms handled on that day are sorted out, sorted and sent to the corresponding branch or head office. This type of form is called a return form, and is a daily routine in which it is essential to process the form handled on the day of the day.

[0003] However, the amount of forms to be handled and processed is enormous, and it is not easy to manually sort the separated forms one by one. In such a case, conventionally, the separated forms are aligned by a paper aligning device, glued by a gluing device, bound once, and then, again, the unit forms are separated by a separating device or manually for each destination such as a branch or a head office. After separating with
I was working on sorting. However, since the paper aligning device, the gluing device, and the separating device are not integrated, workability is poor, and there is a problem that a large space is required for installing each device. Accordingly, the present invention has been completed with the idea of performing the paper alignment, back gluing, separation work and sorting work of such a form by the same apparatus.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A first aspect of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is to provide a paper aligning apparatus for performing paper alignment by applying vibration to a paper stack placed on a substrate. A gluing unit for gluing one side of the paper stack after paper alignment, a booklet separating device for separating the back glued side of the paper stack after gluing, and a sorting device for sorting the separated booklets. And a booklet sorting apparatus. Because of such an apparatus, a series of operations for aligning disjointed sheets, binding, separating, and sorting the subsequent sheets can be easily performed.

A second aspect of the present invention for solving the above problems is a gluing unit for gluing one side surface of a paper stack having papers aligned, and a back glue of the paper stack after the gluing. There is provided a booklet sorting device comprising a booklet separating device for separating the side surfaces and a sorting device for sorting the separated booklets. With such an apparatus, a series of operations for binding, separating, and sorting sheets after paper alignment can be easily performed.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view showing the entire booklet sorting apparatus of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the booklet sorting apparatus of the present invention includes a bookbinding section 100, a booklet separating section 300 for separating bound booklets, and a booklet sorting section 500. Paper 1 such as a form paper is supplied by a first conveyor 29 connected in front of the bookbinding apparatus, and is accumulated on the lower surface plate 10B of the bookbinding unit. A recognition code indicating the front cover, a sorting code, and the like are printed on the cover of the form, and are used in a later process of separating and sorting the booklet. In the bookbinding section, paper is aligned and back glue is applied.Therefore, the bookbinding device stacks paper and vibrates the stacked paper to align the paper, and applies the back glue to the side of the paper after paper alignment. A gluing unit 20 is provided. The booklet separation unit transports the paper,
Recognition code, sorter code,
Separate the booklet while checking the number of sheets. The booklet sorting unit recognizes the sorting destination code of the separated booklet, transports the booklet, and sorts the booklet by destination. Further, a control unit 700 for smoothly operating the entire device of the present invention is added (FIG. 5).

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a bookbinding section and a booklet separating section. In this figure, the bookbinding unit 100 is shown in a vertical position at the time of applying the back glue. After aligning the sheets, the bookbinding unit 100 rotates 90 ° from the initial horizontal state and stands up to the vertical position state in FIG. In this state, the sheet stack 1 is supported by being sandwiched between the side plate 10B (which functions as a lower plate in the horizontal state) and the side plate 10A.
When the binding unit 20 is in the vertical position,
It is on standby at a position where the glue can be applied to the lower surface of the paper, and moves along the lower surface of the paper to apply the back glue. After applying the back glue,
The bookbinding apparatus returns to the original horizontal position again, and pushes the paper stack 1 ′ having the back glue to the booklet separating section 300 and pushers 28.
(FIG. 1), and is conveyed by the second conveyor 30.

Next, the operation of the bookbinding unit 100 will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating the operation of the bookbinding unit. In FIG. 3A, the bookbinding unit is in a state of waiting for a sheet stack 1 such as a form sheet to be supplied by a conveyor or the like. In this state, the side plate 10A is located above and has not yet supported the sheet. Next, when the loading of the paper is completed, the bookbinding unit moves to the lower surface plate 10 serving as the bottom side.
B, incline so that the intersection C of the side plates 10C and 10D is the lowest point (FIG. 3B). When a predetermined inclination angle is reached, the bookbinding apparatus stops at that position, and vibrates the lower surface plate 10B or the side plates 10C and 10D to the left and right so that the side edges of the irregularly stacked sheets abut on the side surface plates, thereby causing both sides. Perform the operation of aligning the surfaces. During this operation, the side plate 10A is in a standby state obliquely upward, but when the paper alignment is completed, it descends in the direction of the arrow shown by the dotted line to press and support the paper stack 1.

Next, the operation at the time of applying the back glue will be described. After the side plate 10A descends and clamps and supports the aligned paper sheet with the lower surface plate 10B, the entire bookbinding apparatus rotates 90 ° from the initial horizontal position to be in a vertical state. At this time, the bookbinding apparatus may temporarily return to the horizontal state from the paper alignment position and return to the vertical state. When applying the back glue, the side plate 10C is the side plate 1
90 ° to 18 from the initial position with the lower side of 0B as the axis
Rotation by 0 ° exposes the back glue application surface of the paper stack 1 (FIG. 3C).

The gluing unit 20 is movable in parallel along the lower surface of the exposed paper stack, and
The adhesive in the glue tank is applied to the back of the paper stack by 3 or the like. The hot melt or water-soluble adhesive 22 filled in the glue tank 21 is applied to the lower surface of the sheet assembly by a rotating glue roller 23. In this case, it is preferable that the gluing unit itself moves on the lower surface of the sheet along the rail, but the binding apparatus may move if possible. After application of the back glue, the bookbinding apparatus makes 90 ° rotation around the lower side of the side plate 10B.
It rotates and returns to the horizontal basic position shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a top view for explaining the gluing unit. The gluing unit has a roller 23 (and preferably a roller 24), and the doctor blade 25 makes the amount of glue on the roller 23 uniform. When a hot melt adhesive is used, the glue tank 21 needs to be provided with a heating device. The entire gluing unit can be run on the rail 27 by a running device below the unit. Reference numeral 26 denotes a doctor blade holder. In order to adjust the contact between the sheet and the roller, a mechanism for moving the entire gluing unit up and down by a small interval is required.

The application roller 23 is a roller made of a gravure or intaglio plate.
The coating amount from μm to 2 mm can be adjusted.
In the case of a hot-melt type adhesive, when the temperature is raised to a high temperature, the adhesive force increases and the strength increases. It is desirable that the strength of the return form or the like, which is one object of the present invention, is not increased too much since the form is separated and used after binding. The roller 24 is for scraping off excess glue after the spine glue is applied to flatten or uniform the glue amount. In addition, it can also serve to adapt the paste to the paper surface.

As shown in FIG. 1, the paper aggregate 1 ′ having the back glue is pushed out to the booklet separating section 300 by the pusher 28, but the conveyor 30 is skewed in the pushing direction of the pusher 28. Since it is installed, it is sent to the booklet separating apparatus while being pressed against the guide plate 31, and can be stopped at a predetermined position where the booklet separating apparatus can start the page turning operation. The table surface of the conveyor and the table surface of the booklet separation device should be on the same horizontal plane, and at the position where the sheet stack 1 ′ is stopped, about half of the area is on the conveyor and the half is on the table of the booklet separation device. Then, the conveyance of the sheet stack by the conveyor and the stop at the predetermined position can be performed by the same operation.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view illustrating a booklet separating apparatus. The booklet separating device of FIG. 6A includes a table 40 on which a booklet is placed, a booklet holder 32, a page turning device 41,
It comprises a wedge device 42, a paper knife 43, and a rail 44 to which the paper knife is attached. Back-solidified paper stack 1 placed on table 40
′ Is lightly pressed from above by the booklet retainer 32, and is prevented from swinging back and forth and left and right. In addition, as described above, it is preferable that the table has a structure combined with the conveyor device. When the page turning device can open the gap between the pages sufficiently large, the wedge device is omitted and the paper knife is directly inserted into the gap as in the booklet separating device of FIG. 6B. Is also good.

The page turning device 41 is also referred to as a sheet number calculator, and is a corner 1 of a sheet aggregate 1 ′ having a back glue.
In step c, the pages are turned one by one from the bottom of the sheet and the number is counted. In addition to counting the number of sheets, the page turning device can also recognize the type of sheet, a recognition code indicating that the cover is a cover sheet, a sort destination code, and the like by using a barcode or the like.
Although this type of device is known to have various mechanisms, a page turning device that can be used in the device of the present invention will be described just in case.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a page turning apparatus and its operation. FIG. 7A is a conceptual diagram showing a cross section of the page turning device, and FIG. 7B is a diagram for explaining the operation thereof. First, the page turning device is shown in FIG.
And a wiper pin 412 orbiting around the suction blade. The suction blade is formed in a flat pipe body, and an upper surface thereof is provided with a suction port 413 for sucking a paper sheet. One end of the suction blade is closed and the other end communicates with the suction pump. In addition, the suction blade needs to count the number of pages of the paper sheet and rise, so that it is connected to an elevator mechanism that rises in conjunction with the counting of the number of pages. The wiper pin also needs to be raised integrally with the suction blade and is connected to the elevator mechanism or connected to the suction blade. These elevator mechanisms are omitted in FIGS.

The operation will be described with reference to FIG. 7B. First, as shown in FIG.
When the upper surface of the paper sheet comes into close contact with the lowermost surface of the set corner 1c of the paper sheet, the paper sheet is automatically sucked by vacuum, and the wiper pin 412 starts rotating. Next, as shown in (2), the blade is inclined at a certain angle to form a gap between the blade and the second sheet, and the wiper pin enters around the gap. next,
In the state (3), before the blade returns to the horizontal state, the pin moves downward and starts to pull the corner 1c of the paper sheet downward. In the state (4), the pin moves to the lower side of the blade, and the first paper is wound on the lower side of the blade.
The blade then begins to attract the next paper. Thus,
In the state of (5), the first sheet is completely moved to the lower side of the blade, and subsequently enters the next cycle and starts counting the second sheet.

In this way, the page turning apparatus performs counting at the same time as turning a page. In the booklet separating apparatus used in the present invention, the page turning apparatus counts a predetermined number of pages or outputs a specific recognition code. Upon confirmation, a wedge is projected and inserted from the wedge device 42 into the gap between the paper sheets formed by the wiper pin and the suction blade, further expanding the gap between the paper sheets created by the page turning device. Then, after that, a paper knife is inserted into the enlarged gap, and at the same time as the paper knife is inserted, the paper knife travels along the back glue portion 1b in a direction parallel to the paper surface to cut the back glued portion. is there. The paper knife 43 is mounted on a rail 44 provided in parallel with the back glue surface of the paper aggregate having the back glue solidified, and travels.

To ensure that the paper knife is inserted into the gap between the paper sheets, the angle of attachment of the paper knife to the rail is such that the tip of the paper knife (the page turning device side) is inserted first between the paper sheets. θ needs to be an angle within 90 °. It is also necessary to consider the shape of the paper knife. The paper knife only functions to separate the booklet, that is, the part that cuts the back glue, that is, the part close to the rail, and the other part functions only to cut the paper sheet. It is not necessary that the whole work as a sharp knife. Rather, doing so would cause unnecessary cutting of the paper sheet and hinder the work. The rail 44 does not necessarily have to be a track-shaped one, but any mechanism capable of attaching a paper knife is sufficient. The rail 44 is a chain-shaped or piston-shaped mechanism that reciprocates or revolves. Is also good.

When the paper knife returns to its original position after cutting the back glue, if the knife completely cuts the back glue and passes through the block, the knife removes the block. Since the paper knife cannot pass through and return, the paper knife rotates a predetermined angle (θ) so as to be parallel to the rail, that is, returns to its original position in a state where it is folded and parallel to the rail, and again. Predetermined angle (θ)
An operation of rotating and returning to the initial state is required.

Next, the booklet sorting section will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 8 is a side view illustrating the booklet sorting unit. The booklet sorting section is the booklet 2 separated by the booklet separation section.
Is a device for reading and putting the code into a pocket for each sorting destination. First, after confirming that the elevator 51 of the sorting unit is empty, the booklet separating apparatus pushes the pusher 4.
5 (FIG. 1) to set the group of booklets 2 in the elevator. At the upper part of the elevator, a roller 52 for feeding the booklet to the conveyor is mounted. When the elevator rises and the roller contacts the booklet, it is rotated at a certain interval and rotated for each unit of the separated booklet. And feed it out. On the front surface of the booklet, the code of the sorting destination for each booklet is recorded by a bar code 3 (FIG. 1) or the like, and the contents of the code are read by the mark reader 53.

Various mechanisms can be employed as the transport mechanism of the sorting apparatus. For example, a mechanism for transporting a booklet between upper and lower rotating rollers 54 may be used. A box having a sorting pocket 56 is arranged below the transport roller.
When the booklet is transported to each sorting pocket by the rotating roller, each sorting pocket is provided with a guide 55 that can shut off the course in the transport direction by opening and closing operation when the booklet to be sorted into the pocket arrives, When the booklet reaches a predetermined pocket, the transport path is closed and the booklet is put into the pocket. It is preferable that a pair of guides 55 are provided in parallel in the upper and lower directions of the transport path, and the upper and lower guides move synchronously. In addition, if the guide is provided close to the feed path so that the feed path is not closed, it can also serve to assist the path by preventing the booklet from unexpectedly falling into the pocket. In the case of FIG.
Illustratively, nine pockets are shown from (A) to (I), but it is arbitrarily possible to increase the number as necessary and increase the number of pockets as a plurality of branched line paths. In the pocket, a booklet to be fed may be directly enclosed in the envelope using a shipping envelope.

Next, the operation of the booklet sorting apparatus of the present invention will be described with reference to a flowchart. FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the bookbinding unit. In S1, the sheet is placed on the supply conveyor 29. At this time, it is determined whether or not the bookbinding unit is processing (S2). If the processing is being performed, the conveyor stops and waits, and if not, the conveyor is started (S2).
3). After the paper is placed, the lower surface plate 10B is inclined obliquely so that the point C becomes the lowest point, stops at a predetermined position, and starts the vibration of the paper aligning device (S4).

After the paper is placed, the bookbinding apparatus counts the elapsed time, and determines whether a predetermined time has elapsed after the paper has been conveyed to the bookbinding unit (S5). If the predetermined time has not elapsed, the vibration continues, and after receiving the signal after the predetermined time has elapsed, the lower surface plate 10B stops the vibration (S
6). At the same time, the holding plate 10A descends to clamp and support the sheet stack 1 (S7).

The side plate 10C moves to the back of the lower plate 10B to expose the lower side surface of the sheet stack (S8). The entire paper aligning apparatus is rotated so that the surface on which the side plate 10C was located is the lowermost surface, and the side plate 1 is a lower plate in a horizontal state.
0B and the holding plate 10A are erected (S9). The gluing unit 20 moves along the lower surface of the exposed paper stack to glue the paper (S10).

After gluing, the bookbinding apparatus counts the elapsed time, and determines whether a predetermined time has elapsed (S11). If the predetermined time has not elapsed, the drying is continued.
0C returns to the original position (S12), and lower surface plate 10B returns to the original horizontal position (S13). After that, the holding plate 10A is opened (S14) and moves up, and the bookbinding apparatus returns to the initial state.

Next, the operation of the booklet separating section will be described. FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the booklet separation unit. After combining the lower surface plate 10B and the conveyor 30 of the bookbinding apparatus in the same plane level (S15), bookbinding unit,
It is determined whether the document is being processed by the booklet separating apparatus (S1).
6) If the processing is being performed, the pusher 28 stops and stands by further. If the processing is not being performed, the pusher operates to transfer the sheet 1 ′ having the back glued to the conveyor 30 (S 17). The sheet is conveyed to the booklet separating apparatus by a conveyor (S18), and it is checked whether or not the conveyance is completed (S19).
2 descends to clamp the sheet (S20).

In the booklet separating apparatus, the flowchart is divided into two paths. The path (A) is a case where a booklet separating apparatus provided with the wedge device 42 is used, and when the page turning device starts page turning (S21) and determines that it is time to separate (S22), the wedge is inserted. Is performed (S23). After the gap between the paper sheets is enlarged by the inserted wedge, a paper knife is inserted (S24),
The back glue is cut. After that, the wedge is stored (S2
5) Separation of one unit of booklet is completed (S26). The booklet separating apparatus can detect that the booklet separation has been completed by the page turning device, and when it is detected that the booklet separation has been completed (S27), the holding plate 32 is raised (S28). The path (B) shows a flowchart of the booklet separating apparatus without the wedge device 42, and the path (A)
In comparison with the above, the process of inserting the wedge (S23) and the process of storing the wedge (S25) are omitted.

Next, the operation of the sorting section will be described.
FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the booklet sorting unit. First, the group of booklets separated by the booklet separation device is set in the elevator 51 of the sorting device (S29).
This is performed by the pusher 45 of the booklet separating section pushing out the booklet. Next, the elevator 51 of the sorting device is raised (S30), and when the uppermost part of the booklet reaches the position of the roller 52, the rollers start rotating by the starting operation, and the booklets are fed one by one to the sorting unit (S31). ). When the mark reader 53 installed at the entrance of the sorting device reads the code printed on the cover of the booklet (S32), the data is sent to the control unit 700 and controls the opening and closing of the guide 55. Convey the booklet to the corresponding pocket (S3
3), the guide 55 comes to the "closed" position, closes the course (S34), and puts the booklet into the pocket. After recognizing that the booklet has been inserted into the pocket (S35), the guide 55 comes to the "open" position (the position indicated by the dotted line of the pocket upper guide 55 in FIG. 8 (H) in FIG. 8) and reopens the course.

In FIG. 5, a control section 700 controls the entire booklet sorting apparatus of the present invention. The bookbinding section checks the processing status of the bookbinding section when feeding paper (S2), Recognition of elapsed time (S5), recognition of elapsed time after gluing (S11), confirmation of processing status of booklet separation unit (S5)
16), the state of conveyance to the booklet separation unit is checked (S19). The booklet separation unit checks the timing of booklet separation (S
22), confirmation of completion of booklet separation (S27). Further, the booklet sorting section performs control of the guide based on the code recognized by the mark reader (S34, S35), confirmation of insertion of the booklet into the pocket (S35), and the like. These confirmations and recognitions are made by transmitting data and data of predetermined sensors for monitoring the apparatus and predetermined set values to the control apparatus and transmitting control signals.

[0031]

As described in detail above, according to the booklet sorting apparatus of the present invention, sheets such as forms are aligned, glued and bound using the same apparatus, separated into booklets, and further separated. Since the separated booklets can be sorted by destination, efficient work can be performed and the installation space of the apparatus can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an entire booklet sorting apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a bookbinding unit and a booklet separating unit.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating an operation of a bookbinding unit.

FIG. 4 is a top view illustrating a gluing unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a control system of the booklet sorting apparatus.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view illustrating a booklet separating apparatus.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a page turning device and its operation.

FIG. 8 is a side view illustrating a booklet sorting unit.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the bookbinding unit.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a booklet separation unit.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a booklet sorting unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 paper stack 1 b back of paper stack 1 ′ back glued paper stack 1 c corner of paper stack 2 booklet 10 paper alignment device 10 A side plate 10 B bottom plate or side plate 10 C, 10 D side plate or bottom plate Reference Signs List 20 gluing unit 25 doctor blade 21 glue tank 26 doctor blade holder 23, 24 roller 28, 45 pusher 29 first conveyor 30 second conveyor 31 guide plate 32 booklet holding 40 table 41 page turning device 411 suction blade 42 wedge device 412 Wiper pin 43 Paper knife 413 Suction opening 44 Rail 51 Elevator 52 Roller 53 Mark reader 54 Rotating roller 55 Guide 56 Pocket 100 Bookbinding unit 300 Booklet separation unit 500 Booklet sorting unit 700 Control unit

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A paper aligning device for performing paper alignment by applying vibration to a paper stack placed on a substrate, a gluing unit for gluing one side of the paper stack after the paper alignment, and the gluing A booklet sorting device comprising: a booklet separating device for separating the side of the sheet stack on which the back glue is solidified; and a sorting device for sorting the separated booklets. 2. A gluing unit for gluing one side of a paper stack having paper aligned, a booklet separating device for separating the back glued side of the glued paper stack, and a booklet separating device for separating the separated booklet. A booklet sorter, comprising: a sorter for sorting. 3. The booklet sorting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sheet stack is a stack of forms after transaction items are entered. 4. The booklet sorting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein a recognition code indicating the cover and a sort destination code are printed on the cover of the form stack.