Patent ID: 8015079

Claim:
A method for managing order fulfillment in an inventory system, the method comprising: receiving, at one or more computer systems associated with the inventory system, information indicative of a plurality of orders, each order in the plurality of orders specifying one or more order line items; grouping, with one or more processors associated with one or more computer systems, order line items that are identical across orders in the plurality of orders into a set of one or more order line item groups that reduce the likelihood that reservation of one line item in a first order in the plurality of orders delays reservation in the inventory system of an identical line item in a second order in the plurality of orders; assigning, with the one or more processors associated with one or more computer systems, a plurality of reservation processes associated with the inventory system to concurrently process reservations in the inventory system for a plurality of groups in the set of one or more order line item groups; and concurrently processing the plurality of groups with multiple processors associated with the one or more computer systems.