Method of handling goods, and more particularly rod, rail or plate goods in box pallets, and goods handling system

摘要

A goods handling system in which elongated goods such as rails, rods or plates are located in storage boxes or cassettes (12), and in which the storage boxes or cassettes are placed on racks having rack supports (15) above each other, the racks being located in a warehouse- type arrangement, with passageways therebetween. Cranes or hoists (19-23) can transfer the cassettes from a storage location in the racks to a horizontally movable transport wagon, which can transport the cassettes to a utilization station (40), for example for reloading, unloading and the like. A control unit (CU) keeps track of the respective cassettes which are interchanged, at random, in the racks, by placing an empty cassette into a storage location from which a full cassette, on which work is to be done, is removed. This permits control of the crane or hoist, and movement of the transport wagon to result in only a single meeting place, and a single horizontal movement of the wagon and a single vertical up-down movement of the crane or hoist, the wagon having two, and preferably three storage locations next to each other so that shift of a pallet box or cassette on the wagon from a loading to an empty position can be done while the wagon is moving, thus resulting in substantial time saving in interchange of cassettes in the racks.