Patent CA-2917918-C (CA)
Title: Method of order fulfilling by preparing storage units at a picking station
Inventor: YAMASHITA SHIN
IPC: B65G1/137
Filed: 2014-07-01
Granted: 2020-03-10
Abstract: Method of fulfilling orders by making orders available in order units by picking from product units in a storage facility wherein, - the storage facility has a manual storage and picking area (I); - the storage facility has an automated storage and retrieval racking area (II); - the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) is arranged downstream or upstream from the manual picking area (I) and is connected to the manual picking area by a routing conveyor, which leads to a shipping area (IV); - the manual storage and picking area (I) comprises manual picking stations supplied and arranged along the extension of the routing conveyor and supplying the routing conveyor with order units picked at the manual picking stations; - the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) comprises: - a storage racking comprising a plurality of multilevel storage racks in which order and/or product units are stored, wherein the storage racks are disposed back-to-back in pairs and have an aisle between pairs; - at least one storage-entry conveyor provided for feeding order and/or product units into the storage racking; - at least one storage-exit conveyor provided for retrieval of order and/or product units from the storage racking; - at least one automatic storage and retrieval device provided for each storage racking aisle, wherein the order and/or product units are stored and retrieved from the storage racks by the automatic storage and retrieval; - at least one lifting device used, in order to transfer the order and/ or product units to the at least one storage-exit conveyor; - at least one fully or semiautomatic picking station for picking from product units into order units for fulfilling orders, to which order and/or product units are fed by the at least one storage-exit conveyor and from which order and/or product units are dispatched by the at least one storage-entry conveyor; - wherein order and/or product units (U) are exchanged directly between two adjoining storage racks (R) from a source storage rack to an adjacent destination storage rack via cross conveyance locations (Q) in the storage racks themselves; wherein the routing conveyor is connected to the at least one inbound storage-entry conveyor and/or the at least one storage-exit conveyor of the storage racking; whereby · order units containing completed orders coming from the manual storage and picking area (I) are dispatched via the routing conveyor to the shipping area or introduced into the storage racking of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) via the at least one storage- entry conveyor for later dispatch; · order units containing completed orders coming from the storage racking of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) are dispatched via the routing conveyor to the shipping area; · order units containing completed orders coming from the fully or semiautomatic picking station of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) are dispatched via the routing conveyor to the shipping area or introduced into the storage racking of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) via the at least one storage-entry conveyor for later dispatch; · order units containing partial orders coming from the manual storage and picking area (I) are introduced into the storage racking of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) via the at least one storage-entry conveyor for further processing or introduced directly into the fully or semiautomatic picking station for immediate processing; · order units containing partial orders coming from the fully or semiautomatic picking station or the storage racking of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) are introduced into the storage racking of the automated storage and retrieval racking area (II) or to the manual storage and picking area (I) for further processing.