Patent ID: 8050794

Claim:
A method for transporting multiple items, the method which comprises: performing multiple transport processes each including the following steps: transferring at least one item respectively into a transport means; transporting the transport means with the at least one item to a processing system; and feeding all of the items transported with the transport means to the processing system before further items are fed to the processing system; and performing a first measurement for each item as to whether or not the item possesses a given optically measurable characteristic and, if so, in what form the item possesses the characteristic, before the item is transferred into one of the transport means; determining and storing for each transport process transport-process information as to which items are transported together by way of the specific transport process, and storing the result of the first measurement as a component part of the transport-process information of the particular transport process by means of which the specific item is transported; for each transport process, after transportation of the transport means to the respective processing system: measuring whether or not at least one item with the predefined characteristic was fed by way of the respective transport process to the processing system and, if so, in what form the item possesses the characteristic; determining, from the stored transport-process information, each transport process by way of which an item with the given form of the characteristic was transferred into a transport means and transported therein; and performing a transport-process search to ascertain the transport process with which the item has been transported and thereby using as a result of the search, for each item which was fed by means of this transport process to the processing system, the set of transport processes thus determined.