System for delivery

An automated warehousing system for receipt, storage and disposition of a wide variety of material items comprising:

• a multiplicity of containers for receiving different quantities and varieties of the material items;
• a storage carousel for receiving and storing the containers, said carousel including a multiplicity of container support racks arranged in a plurality of spaced apart tiers, each tier having a multiplicity of racks arranged in side by side fashion, means forming a continuous track, and means for rotating the container support racks about the continuous track;
• loading means for selectively inserting and extracting the containers from said storage carousel while the container support racks are in continuous motion about the track;
• a work center at which items may be selectively added or withdrawn from the containers, the work center including, a work area for providing an operator access to the containers, and a temporary storage queue for receiving and temporarily storing a plurality of selected containers prior to delivery to the work area, said temporary storage queue being randomly accessible for providing said work area with any one of the containers stored thereon;
• conveyor means for delivering selected containers from said storage carousel to said work center;
• and
• control means for coordinating the insertion and extraction of selected containers from said storage carousel, the movement of containers between said storage carousel and said work center, and the movement of containers between said temporary storage queue and said work area.

An automated warehousing system for receipt, storage and disposition of a wide variety of material items comprising:

• a multiplicity of containers for receiving different quantities and varieties of the material items;
• a storage carousel for receiving and storing the containers, said carousel including a multiplicity of connected container support rack arrays arranged in side by side fashion, means forming a continuous track, and means for rotating the container support rack arrays about the continuous track, each said container support rack array including a plurality of vertically spaced container racks, the container racks from said container support rack arrays being arranged in tiers;
• loading means for selectively inserting and extracting the containers from the storage carousel;
• a work center for selectively adding or withdrawing items from said containers, the work center including,
• a work area for providing an operator with access to the containers, and
• a temporary storage queue forming a vertical conveyor for receiving and temporarily storing a plurality of selected containers prior to delivery to the work area, said temporary storage queue being randomly accessible for providing said work area with any one of the containers stored thereon, the temporary storage queue including a frame, queue track means forming a continuous track and carried by said frame, a plurality of shelves carried by the queue track means, means for rotating said shelves about the queue track means, means for loading containers onto selected shelves, and means for randomly unloading containers from said shelves to said delivery means;
• conveyor means for delivering selected containers from said storage carousel to said work center;
• and
• control means for coordinating the insertion and extraction of selected containers from said storage carousel, the movement of containers between said storage carousel and said work center, and the movement of containers between said temporary storage queue and said work area.

An automated warehousing system for receipt, storage and disposition of a wide variety of material items comprising:

• a multiplicity of containers for receiving different quantities and varieties of the material items;
• a multiplicity of totes drawers for receiving consolidated orders of said material items;
• a storage carousel for receiving and storing the containers, said carousel including a multiplicity of container support racks arranged in a plurality of vertically spaced apart tiers, each tier having a multiplicity of racks arranged in side by side fashion, means forming a continuous track, and means for rotating the container support racks about the continuous track;
• loading means for selectively inserting and extracting the containers from the storage carousel;
• a work center at which items may be selectively added or withdrawn from said containers, the work center including,
• a work area for providing an operator access to the containers,
• a temporary storage queue for receiving and temporarily storing a plurality of selected containers prior to delivery to the work area, said temporary storage queue being randomly accessible for providing said work area with any one of the containers stored thereon, and
• delivery means for transporting each selected container between said temporary storage queue and the work area,
• a consolidation queue for carrying said totes, said consolidation queue being disposed in close proximity to the work area so that an operator may transport goods between the work area and the consolidation queue and including,
• a vertically oriented consolidation frame,
• an endless progression of substantially horizontally oriented shelves adapted to support said totes and travel about the frame, and
• means for rotating said shelves about the consolidation frame;
• conveyor means for delivering selected containers from said storage carousel to said work center;
• and
• control means for coordinating the insertion and extraction of selected containers from said storage carousel, the movement of containers between said storage carousel and said work center, the movement of containers between said temporary storage queue and said work areas and the movement of said consolidation queue.

An automated warehousing system for receipt, storage and disposition of a wide variety of material items comprising:

• a multiplicity of containers for receiving different quantities and varieties of the material items;
• a multi-level storage structure for receiving and storing the containers, said storage structure including a multiplicity of container support racks on each level of said storage structure;
• loading means for automatically selectively inserting and extracting said containers from said storage structure;
• a work center for providing an operator with access to the containers, the work center including a temporary storage queue for temporarily holding a plurality of containers and a work area accessible by an operator to facilitate selectively adding or withdrawing items from said containers;
• conveyor means for delivering said containers from said storage structure to said work center;
• and
• control means for coordinating the delivery of containers between said storage structure and said work center, said control means including,
• a master controller for receiving orders for particular material items, remembering the particular material items disposed within each said container and determining whether each particular order can be filled by items within the warehousing system,
• a storage facility controller independent from said master controller for managing the activities of the storage structure and the loading means, the storage facility controller causing said containers to be randomly positioned on the storage structure and remembering the rack position at which each container is stored on the storage structure, and
• a work center controller independent from said master and storage facility controllers for managing the activities of the work center,
• wherein said work center controller or said master controller directs the storage facility controller to extract selected containers for delivery to said work center and whereby the storage facility controller substantially independently manages the extraction of the selected containers.

A system for receipt and storage of material items and delivering said material items in consolidated orders, the system comprising:

• a multiplicity of containers for receiving material items;
• a multiplicity of totes for receiving consolidated orders of said material items;
• a multi-level storage structure for receiving and storing said containers;
• loading means for selectively inserting and extracting containers onto said storage structure;
• an issue station at which items may be selectively withdrawn from the containers and said issue station including a work area for receiving said containers and a vertically oriented consolidation queue for receiving and storing a multiplicity of said totes, said consolidation queue including a consolidation frame, an endless progression of substantially horizontally oriented consolidation shelves adapted to support said totes and travel about the consolidation frame, and means for causing said consolidation shelves to travel about the consolidation frame;
• a conveyor array for transporting said containers between said storage structure and said work area;
• a shipping station for organizing the order of delivery of the totes from the system, the shipping station including a vertically oriented shipping queue having a shipping frame, an endless progression of substantially horizontally oriented shipping shelves adapted to support said totes and travel vertically about the shipping frame, and means for causing said shipping shelves to travel about the shipping frame;
• transfer means for extracting said totes from said consolidation queue and transferring said totes to said shipping queue;
• and
• control means for automatically delivering said containers from said storage structure to said issue station, automatically opening said totes when a container holding material items requested in the order associated with the tote is disposed within the work area and automatically directing the transfer of totes from said consolidation queue to said shipping queue.

An automated warehousing system for receipt, storage and disposition of a wide variety of material items comprising:

• a multiplicity of containers for receiving different quantities and varieties of the material items;
• container storage means including a storage carousel for receiving and storing the containers, said carousel including a multiplicity of connected container support rack arrays arranged in side by side fashion, means forming a continuous track, and means for rotating the container support rack arrays about the continuous track, each said container support rack array including a plurality of vertically spaced container racks, the container racks from said container support rack arrays being arranged in tiers;
• loading means for selectively inserting and extracting the containers from said storage carousel while the container support racks are in continuous motion about the track;
• a work center for selectively transferring items between said containers and totes, said work center including a work area for receiving said containers and a temporary storage queue forming a vertical conveyor for receiving and temporarily storing a plurality of selected containers prior to delivery to the work area;
• the work area having a plurality of side by side work tables accessible by a single operator for providing the operator with access to the containers;
• said temporary storage queue being randomly accessible for providing said work area with any one of the containers stored thereon, the temporary storage queue including a frame, queue track means forming a continuous track and carried by said frame, an assembly comprising a plurality of connected shelves carried by the queue track means, means for rotating said assembly about the queue track means, means for loading containers onto selected shelves, and means for randomly unloading containers from said shelves to a delivery means;
• said delivery means for transporting each selected container between said temporary storage queue and a chosen work table;
• conveyor means for delivering selected containers from said storage carousel to said work center;
• and
• control means for coordinating the insertion and extraction of selected containers from said storage carousel, the movement of containers between said storage carousel and said work center, and the movement of containers between said temporary storage queue and said work tables.