Appeal No. 2000-0076
Application 08/970,231
Biffis, the examiner’s primary reference, discloses a
building production line 10 located on-site in the midst of a
subdivision 80 of building lots 82 (see Figure 8). As
described in the reference,
production line 10 is a factory-like facility in
which two parallel production lines, 11 and 12,
are placed side by side. The production lines
each include its own railway track 14, 15
extending through the assembly facility past a
basic construction area 16 and then past a
plurality of bays 18 providing storage space for
light construction and finishing materials such
as window frames and doors, plumbing and
electrical supplies. Basic construction area 16
and bays 18 are collectively referred to as
“work stations”. Running on the tracks 14 and
15 are a plurality of transporting devices 20
each comprising a flatbed 21 (see FIG. 2) having
a series of railway track engaging wheels 22
there beneath and anti-friction surfaces, such
as roller conveyors 24, on the upper surfaces of
the flatbed.
As the devices 20 proceed from left to
right as seen in FIG. 1, the building unit 30 is
erected on the base member of the system . . .
. Fabrication of the building unit 30 continues
throughout the production line until finally it
is rolled out to a loading bay 25 on the right
hand side of FIG. 1. Here a means to transport
the prefabricat[ed] building unit to the
building site is provided in the form of a
flatbed truck 26 which is dimensioned so that
the building unit 30 can be slid off the roller
conveyors 24 on the flatbed 21, onto the flatbed
27 of the truck 26 which itself has an anti-
friction surface on top of its flatbed, which
anti-friction surface may be a roller conveyor
28 similar to the roller conveyor 24.
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