Patent ID: 7558640

Claim:
A computer program product tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage device, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, perform operations for configuring a logistic unit software object for processing in a warehouse environment, the operations comprising: accessing a template database object used to instantiate a class of logistical unit (LU) software objects that comprise software representations of units of stock or stock receptacles that are processed for logistical purposes by a software model of a warehouse environment in operations for the warehouse environment; receiving a user assignment of attributes used to determine how to process the stock or stock receptacles within the warehouse environment, wherein the attributes include common characteristics that are shared among different stock or stock receptacles; instantiating from the template database object a LU software object having the attributes, wherein the LU software object is capable of representing any of the different stock or stock receptacles that have the common characteristics; designating the LU software object as representing particular stock or a particular stock receptacle having unshared individual characteristics that are not shared among the different stock or stock receptacles; determining in a first operation by the software model how the particular stock or the particular stock receptacle represented by the LU software object is processed within the warehouse environment based on the common characteristics and not the individual characteristics of the particular stock or the particular stock receptacle represented by the LU software object; and outputting an indication of how to process the particular stock or the particular stock receptacle based on the determination.