Order fulfillment technique

An order fulfillment system, comprising:

• at least one pick station that receives product receptacles and dispatches transportation receptacles, wherein items are retrieved from said product receptacles and placed in said transportation receptacles at said at least one pick station;
• an automated warehouse adapted to store a plurality of inventory receptacles and having a plurality of vehicles and an outbound device, each of said vehicles adapted to storing inventory receptacles and retrieving inventory receptacles, said outbound device is adapted to exchanging inventory receptacles between the vehicles and said at least one pick station;
• a computer system defining an order queue and supplying said order queue with a plurality of orders of items;
• a plurality of vehicle queues, each associated with one of said vehicles, each of said vehicle queues capable of storing the identity of multiple inventory receptacles for certain of the orders;
• said computer system controls said automated warehouse to retrieve inventory receptacles with said vehicles, wherein each of the inventory receptacles has items for at least one of the orders and the vehicles each depositing the retrieved inventory receptacles to the outbound queue associated with that lift;
• and
• said computer system causing said outbound device to retrieving inventory receptacles from said outbound queue and forwarding the inventory receptacles from said outbound queues to the pick station according to requirements of the pick station;
• and
• said computer system directs retrieving of items from product receptacles at the pick station and putting the items into transportation receptacles.