Patent ID: 8571915

Claim:
A system, comprising: a memory; and one or more processors coupled to the memory, wherein the memory comprises program instructions executable by the one or more processors to implement a pick scheduler component configured to: determine that a quantity of available labor is greater than a quantity of labor needed to perform an item picking process that includes picking a plurality of items from respective locations of a materials handling facility, wherein the plurality of items are scheduled to be picked during a particular time period of a picking schedule; in response to that determination, evaluate multiple items that are not scheduled to be picked during the particular time period in order to identify candidate items that are candidates to be picked during said particular time period, wherein picking a given candidate item during said particular time period is projected to improve one or more performance metrics of said item picking process; for each of multiple candidate items, determine that temporally advancing the picking of that item to the particular time period is expected to improve a shipping metric of a shipment including that item; and in response to determining that the expected shipping metric improvement of a particular candidate item is greater than the expected shipment metric improvement of one or more other candidate items, generate an instruction to pick the particular candidate item during the particular time period.