Patent ID: 11875421
Assignee: SAP SE
Field: IT methods for management (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  B  H | IPC G  H

Claim 16:
17. A distributed warehouse management system for distributing at least one warehouse task from a warehouse management hub to one of a plurality of programmable logic controllers, the system comprising:
the warehouse management hub;
a plurality of warehouse management devices, wherein each warehouse management device is connected to the warehouse management hub via a wide area network;
the plurality of programmable logic controllers, wherein each programmable logic controller is connected to one of the warehouse management devices via a local area network;
wherein the warehouse management hub is configured to:
send an initial configuration to a warehouse management device, the initial configuration comprising routing information, the routing information including a plurality of sources and a plurality of destinations within a warehouse and at least one programmable logic controller located between each source of the plurality of sources and each destination of the plurality of destinations;
process state information received from each of the plurality of warehouse management devices, the state information comprising one or more of:
a state of sources and destinations within the warehouse,
a state of positioning systems within the warehouse,
a state of handling units within the warehouse, and
a state of each communication point or a subset of communication points in the warehouse;

transmit an update to the initial configuration to the warehouse management device based on the state information;
receive the warehouse task, the warehouse task including attributes for physically transferring at least one product into a warehouse, out of the warehouse or within the warehouse;
determine, based on the attributes of the warehouse task, the warehouse management device from the warehouse management devices for processing the warehouse task;
send, the warehouse task to the determined warehouse management device; and

wherein the determined warehouse management device is configured to:
identify, based on the attributes of the warehouse task and on the updated initial configuration, a first one of the programmable logic controllers; and
send a message including information for carrying out the warehouse task to one of the programmable logic controllers based on the identification of the first one of the programmable logic controllers.