Patent ID: 8327609

Claim:
Automated system for preparing product parcels, comprising: a storage magazine comprising at least one storage assembly, each storage assembly being formed by a lane serving on either side storage racks with several levels, said racks being subdivided over their length into storage compartments intended each to accept a product container, this lane receiving, at each storage level, tracks for the movement of a shuttle allowing the placing or extraction of said containers inside the compartments and an elevator being disposed at at least one of the ends of the lane, the elevator being able to bring a shuttle from one level to another and comprising an input and/or output level of the magazine for the product containers, a picking station where an operator prepares the parcel by placing therein the desired quantity of products, a main conveyor assembly bringing the container of products from the input/output of the magazine to the picking station and vice versa, a central management computer system controlling the movements of each parcel, each shuttle, each elevator and each product container and managing a product order list associated with each parcel, said list consisting of order lines each indicating the desired product and quantity, the main conveyor assembly comprising means for sequencing, the means for sequencing permitting to sequence the product containers according to their order on the order list, so that they are presented to the picking station in this order, wherein the means for sequencing comprise a first conveying section, referred to as the input/output section, a second conveying section, referred to as the accumulation section, parallel and adjacent to the first conveying section and adjacent to the picking station, the said conveying sections being located horizontally at the same level, and an intermediate buffer zone located between the output of the magazine and the first conveying section, the product containers being transposed between the conveying sections at transfer zones and the direction of movement of the two sections being opposite, so that the circulation of the product containers between the input/outputs of the magazine and the picking station takes place in a loop.