Packing station and multi-modal interface

A packaging system comprising:

• a conveyor for conveying a product associated with a customer order through the packaging system;
• a packager for placing the product in packaging to create a packaged product;
• a package database storing information related to an order;
• a printer for printing shipping information on at least one of a label or the packaged product, the printing being performed based at least in part on information in the package database;
• a scale for measuring a weight of the product;
• a link to a postage database storing postage rates;
• a single workstation comprising a display and a multi-modal interface for linking the workstation to at least the sensor, the scale, the package database, and the postage database, wherein the multi-modal interface includes a first user interface that aggregates together in a single user interface a plurality of user selectable operating modes that are displayed simultaneously, wherein the plurality of operating modes includes:
• a pack and print mode wherein the product is placed in the packaging by the packager and the printer generates the label based on information in the package database;
• a look up mode wherein the display displays information from the package database for a selected order;
• a shipping mode wherein the workstation searches the postage database based on the information related to the order stored in the package database and the weight measured by the scale, and returns postage information to be used to ship the product;
• and
• a combined mode for selecting a combination of the pack mode, the look-up mode, and the shipping mode.