Patent ID: 8784034
Filing Date: 2014-07-22
Classification: B65G

Abstract:
1. A method for combining a selection of different products in an outbound container, said method comprising: providing a warehouse having stacked levels of storage locations, each of said storage locations being located immediately adjacent to a vehicle support roadway in a network of roadways with more than one roadway level so that each roadway level is at a different one of the stacked levels of storage locations, at least one roadway of said network including a branching location at which the at least one roadway divides into different branching roadways which lead to different ones of said storage locations, providing a source transfer station adjacent to one of said roadways in said network of roadways, providing a destination order assembly station adjacent to one of said roadways in said network of roadways, providing a plurality of wheeled transport vehicles, each given one of said vehicles being movable from its current location in said network of roadways to a specified target location in said network of roadways in response to a movement command by following a selected one of said branching roadways at each branching location that said given one said vehicles encounters as it moves through said network from said current location to said target location, unpalletizing shipping cases where each of said vehicles further including a transfer mechanism for transferring at least one unpalletized shipping case, forming a not palletized case payload, to and from said vehicle, providing a programmed processor for issuing movement commands to said vehicles, storing a multiplicity of different products in said warehouse by repeatedly: retrieving and combining a selection of different products stored in said warehouse by repeatedly: