Patent ID: 8594834

Claim:
A unit-level materials handling facility, comprising: a plurality of inventory areas, each inventory area of the plurality of inventory areas comprising a plurality of portable storage units, wherein one or more portable storage units of the plurality of portable storage units comprises one or more locations for stowing one or more types of items, and wherein one or more mobile robotic devices operable to transport the one or more portable storage units within a respective inventory area operate within each inventory area; a conveyance mechanism operable to convey from and return to each inventory area of the plurality of inventory areas; wherein each inventory area further comprises one or more induction stations, each induction station of the one or more induction stations located proximate to a portion of the conveyance mechanism within the respective inventory area, and wherein each induction station corresponds to a particular one of the inventory areas; a control system operable to, for each inventory area of the plurality of inventory areas: direct the one or more robotic devices to transport the one or more portable storage units of the respective inventory area to and from the one or more corresponding induction stations of the respective inventory area; and direct induction of one or more single units of items from one or more locations of a storage unit currently at an induction station of the respective inventory area into the conveyance mechanism at the respective induction station for individually conveying the single units to one or more further processing stations; wherein for induction at the one or more corresponding induction stations of at least one of the plurality of inventory areas, only portable storage units of that inventory area are transported to and from the one or more corresponding induction stations of that inventory area.