High-speed golf ball handling and management system

Abstract

A golf ball printing system has a plurality of stations and a plurality of station tracks. The plurality of stations have an orienting station, a printing station, and a offloading station, and each of the plurality of station tracks have an orienting station track, a printing station track, and an offloading station track. The golf ball printing system also has a primary track connecting each of the plurality of station tracks and a plurality of shuttles configured to traverse the primary track and the plurality of station tracks. The golf ball printing system further has a control system configured to control the movement of the plurality of shuttles to print a marking on a golf ball on each of the plurality of shuttles at the printing station.

1 . A method for manufacturing a golf ball, comprising: 
 delivering a first plurality of golf balls to a first orienting station;   placing each of the first plurality of golf balls on a shuttle connected to a first orienting station track;   delivering the shuttles to a first printing station track via a primary track;   printing a first marking on each of the first plurality of golf balls at a first printing station;   delivering the shuttles to a first offloading station track via the primary track; and   offloading the first plurality of golf balls from the shuttles at a first offloading station.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising delivering the shuttles to a second station track via the primary track and printing a second marking on each of the first plurality of golf balls at a second printing station. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising reorienting the golf balls between printing the first marking and printing the second marking. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 delivering a second plurality of golf balls to a second orienting station;   placing each of the second plurality of golf balls on a shuttle connected to a second orienting station track;   delivering the shuttles to a second printing station track via the primary track;   printing a second marking on each of the second plurality of golf balls at a second printing station;   delivering the shuttles to a second offloading station track via the primary track; and   offloading the second plurality of golf balls from the shuttles at a second offloading station.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the shuttles are simultaneously delivered to the first printing station track and the second printing station track via the primary track. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the first marking and the second marking are different markings. 
     
     
         7 . A computer-implemented method for manufacturing a golf ball at a golf ball handling system, the golf ball handling system comprising a control system including a processing unit and a memory storying instructions for the processing unit to perform a process, the process comprising: 
 receiving a plurality of processing orders;   generating a plurality of processing plans for each of the processing orders; and   executing the processing plans on the golf ball handling system to simultaneously perform different manufacturing tasks on different golf balls within the golf ball handling system.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the golf ball handling system comprises a transportation system comprising a primary track and a plurality of station tracks connected to each other by the primary track. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein each station tracks is associated with a processing station for performing a manufacturing task on a golf ball.