Patent ID: 8374720

Claim:
A sorting plant for the sorting of a plurality of articles, the sorting plant comprising: a feed transport path; a lead-away transport path; a plurality of connecting transport paths each branching off from said feed transport path and issuing into said lead-away transport path; a plurality of storage regions, each configured for temporarily storing a plurality of articles to be sorted; and a data storage device with a computer-evaluatable sorting plan; said feed transport path, each said connecting transport path, and said lead-away transport path being configured for transporting the articles in a given transport direction; said sorting plan assigning a storage region, in each case to each possible feature value of a stipulated sorting feature; a measuring device configured for measuring, for each article to be sorted, which feature value the sorting feature assumes for the respective article; wherein one of said feed transport path or said lead-away transport path is configured as a storage transport path and the other of said feed transport path and lead-away transport path is configured as an overtaking transport path; wherein said storage transport path comprises said storage regions, in the form of a sequence of successive storage regions, and wherein the sorting plant is configured: for each article to be sorted, to use the sorting plan and, as a function of the measured feature value, to select a storage region; to transport each article at least once on said feed transport path, on a respective said connecting transport path, and on said lead-away transport path, and to temporarily store the article in the selected said storage region; when the sorting plant has selected a first storage region for a first article and a second storage region for a following, second article, wherein the second storage region, as seen in the transport direction of the storage transport path, comes after the first storage region in the sequence: to temporarily store the first article in the first storage region; to transport the second article, using the overtaking transport path, past the first article stored in the first storage region to the second storage region; so that, after transport, the articles are sorted as a function of the respective feature values thereof in said lead-away transport path.