Patent ID: 7991505

Claim:
An automated product selection system for combining packages containing different products in an outbound container comprising, in combination, a warehouse of temporary storage locations having a plurality of vertically stacked storage levels, each of said storage locations being located immediately adjacent to a vehicle support roadway in a network of roadways, a source transfer station adjacent to one of said roadways in said network of roadways, a destination transfer station adjacent to one of said roadways in said network of roadways, a plurality of wheeled transport vehicles each of which is movable from its current location in said network of roadways to a specified target location in said network of roadways in response to a movement command, each wheeled transport vehicle being configured to traverse the network of roadways and access all storage locations of at least one vertically stacked storage level, a plurality of incoming cases each containing the same kind of product item units delivered to said source transfer station from a remote manufacturing source, means located at said source transfer station for transferring individual ones of said cases onto individual ones of said wheeled transport vehicles, a programmed processor configured to issue a command to move each given wheeled transport vehicle receiving a case at said source transfer station to a designated one of said storage locations, a case transport mechanism on said given wheeled transport vehicles for transferring the case mounted thereon to said designated storage location when said given transport vehicle arrives at said designated storage location, said programmed processor being further configured to issue one or more movement commands to move a specified wheeled transport vehicle to a specified storage location where a given one of said different products is stored, a case transport mechanism on said specified wheeled transport vehicle for transferring the case stored at said specified storage location to said specified wheeled transport vehicle, said programmed processor being further configured to issue one or movement commands to move said specified wheeled transport vehicle to said destination transfer station, and means at said destination transfer station for transferring all or part of the contents of the case on said specified wheeled transport vehicle to said outbound container.