Continuous flow operation of a merge system

A method of consolidating articles from article sources into article groups at destinations in a material handling system, the material handling system having a plurality of article sources, a plurality of article destinations, a plurality of article merges and at least one sorter, each of said merges having a plurality of queue lanes and a discharge, said at least one sorter having:

• an inbound lane and a plurality of outbound lanes, at least one upstream ones of said queue lanes receiving articles from said article sources, said merges combining articles from said queue lanes and discharging to a downstream merge or said at least one sorter inbound lane, each of said sorter outbound lanes discharging to one of said article destination, said method comprising:
• releasing data defining groups of articles from a warehouse management system (WMS), to the material handling system, the data identifying:
• articles making up each group and the location of those articles in the material handling system, an article number for each article in the group and a group release sequencing number (RSN), the RSN assigned to each group is sequential in a same sequence in which that group is released to the material handling system adjusting for any priority of the group;
• at each article merge, maintaining a log of a maximum RSN (MAX RSN) for that merge and the RSN for articles in the queue lanes of that merge;
• and
• releasing articles from each queue until an article having an RSN greater than the MAX RSN for that merge is next to be released.

A method of consolidating articles from article sources into article groups at destinations in a material handling system, the material handling system having:

• a plurality of article sources, a plurality of article destinations, a plurality of article merges, and a sorter, said method comprising:
• connecting said article merges and said sorter in a manner that a discharge of an upstream one of said merges defines said plurality of article sources, outbound lanes of said sorter defines said plurality of article destinations and each intermediate merge discharges to a downstream merge or to said sorter;
• releasing data defining groups of articles from a warehouse management system (WMS) to the material handling system, the data identifying:
• articles making up each group and the location of those articles in the material handling system, an article number for each article in the group and a group release sequencing numbers (RSN), the RSN assigned to each group is sequential in a same sequence in which that group is released to the material handling system adjusted for any priority of that group;
• activating an article group at a merge when all articles of an article group that is already active have gone through that merge, including activating an upstream article group with an oldest RSN (MAX RSN) adjusted for a group priority at that merge;
• and
• maintaining a minimum RSN (MIN RSN) at each merge that is the group with the oldest RSN of any non-completed article groups that have articles going through the merge and increasing the MAX RSN for that merge only when the article group having the MIN RSN is competed at that merge.

A material handling system that is adapted to consolidate articles from a plurality of article sources into article groups at a plurality of destinations, said system comprising:

• a plurality of article merges and at least one sorter, each of said merges having a plurality of queue lanes and a discharge, said at least one sorter having an inbound lane and a plurality of outbound lanes, said merges combining articles from a plurality of queue lanes and discharging to a downstream merge or said at least one sorter inbound lane, said queue lanes of an upstream merge receiving articles from said article sources said sorter outbound lanes discharging to said article destination;
• a control system adapted to receive data from a warehouse management system (WMS), said WMS releasing data defining groups of articles to said control system;
• said control system is adapted to activate each group at a merge in a same sequence as the group is released to the material handling system, said control system adjusting for any priority assigned to a group;
• and
• said control adapted to activate a new group at a merge only when all the articles of a group that is already activated at that merge has cleared that merge.

A material handling system that is adapted to consolidate articles into article groups, said system comprising:

• a plurality of article sources and a plurality of article destinations;
• a plurality of article merges and at least one sorter, each of said merges having a plurality of queue lanes and a discharge, said at least one sorter having an inbound lane and a plurality of outbound lanes, said merges combining articles from a plurality of queue lanes and discharging to a downstream merge or said at least one sorter inbound lane, said queue lanes of an upstream merge receiving articles from said article sources said sorter outbound lanes discharging to said article destination;
• a control system adapted to receive data from a warehouse management system (WMS), said WMS releasing data defining groups of articles to said control system including:
• a group ID, a group priority, an article ID for each article in the group and an article source location of each article in the group;
• said control system assigning a group release sequencing numbers (RSN) for each group, the RSN assigned to each group is sequential in a same sequence in which that group is released from the WMS to the material handling system adjusted for any group priority;
• said control system maintaining for each merge a log of a maximum (MAX RSN) for that merge and the RSN for articles in the queues of that merge;
• and
• said control system causing a merge to release articles from each queue until an article having an RSN greater than the MAX RSN for that merge is next to be released.