Method and apparatus for documentless order picking of goods

A method for manual documentless selection of a plurality of different types of store room items for filling an order of said items by an order picker, said store room comprising a plurality of storage passages and each storage passage having a plurality of storage locations, each said storage location being for storing a plurality of predetermined type of said items, and being provided with a selectively variable optical quantity display signal and a manually actuateable acknowledgement switch for signaling selection of said items from the corresponding storage location, said method comprising for each type of store room item in said order, the steps of:

• generating a first optical location signal indicating a passage for selection of at least one item in said order;
• generating a second optical location signal indicating a storage location in said passage for selection of said at least one item in said order;
• actuating the optical quantity display signal at the indicated storage location indicating the quantity of items to be selected therefrom;
• actuating the acknowledgement switch at said indicated storage location for signaling selection of the indicated quantity of items therefrom;
• extinguishing the quantity signal after actuation of said acknowledgement switch at the storage location;
• generating a direction signal for directing the order picker along a minimum distance route to to the storage location for the next item required for said order.