The invention relates to a method for order picking products in an order picking facility having at least one rack for storing the products and an assigned warehouse transport system for collecting and storing the products and for transferring the collected products to a transport system, by means of which the collected products are transported to a good-to-order picking station, at which the quantity of the collected products that is determined in a picking order is manually or automatically by a robot, respectively, order-picked into one order transport unit for each picking order, wherein product types corresponding to the picking order are collected, order-picked at the good-to-picker order picking station (WZM1) one after the other and wherein the remaining products of the product type are re-stored via the transport system again in the rack.
The invention further relates to an order picking facility for order picking products, wherein the order picking facility has at least one rack for storing the products and a warehouse transport system assigned to the rack for collecting and storing and the products and for transferring the collected products to a transport system and wherein there is provided a warehouse administration computer for controlling the order picking facility, and wherein there is provided a good-to-picker order picking station, at which the quantity of the collected goods that is determined in a picking order may be order picked in one order transport unit for each picking order, wherein product types corresponding to the picking order may be collected by the warehouse transport system, order picked at the good-to-picker order picking station and wherein products of the product type remaining after the order picking may be re-stored via the transport system in the rack.
Such a method and such an order picking facility are, for example, known from the document DE 101 36 354 A1. The known system comprises several high racks of a high-rack storage, between which there is formed a lane width, in which there is provided respectively one warehouse transport system in order to store or collect the products stored in the high-rack storage. Each of the warehouse transport systems has one level operating tool per rack level, by means of which the products to be collected are picked up at storage sites and transferred to a lift of the transport system. By means of conveyor belts of the transport system, collected products are conveyed to the good-to-picker order picking station, at which an operator takes the quantity of the product type of the collected product that is determined for a picking order and places this into an order container or an order transport unit, respectively, of the picking order. A warehouse administration computer of the order picking facility controls the warehouse transport systems and the transport system so that all products that are to be order picked for a picking order are collected from the high-rack storage one after the other and transported to the good-to-picker order picking station. The operator then only has to take out the quantity of the product type of the collected products that is displayed on a monitor or by light symbols and put these into the order container A. Collected products remaining after the order picking will then be re-stored in the high-rack storage, controlled by the warehouse administration computer.
In the known method for order picking and the known order picking facility it has been proven that this way of good-to-picker order picking may be rather satisfyingly applied for certain picking orders. It is, however, disadvantageous that for certain product types or certain product characteristics (e.g., turn-over frequency, product geometry), respectively, or in order to obtain high order picking through-put performances for certain picking orders or parts of certain picking orders there may be applied order picking systems that are more suitable than the good-to-picker order picking system. Order picking by means of central belt technology, for example, has been rather successfully used for the order picking of, e.g., medicinal products. In central belt technology, there is provided a completely different storage system according to the state of art, which is why in known order picking facilities there has to be decided immediately after the delivery of the products by truck or rail, how the products are to be finally order picked in order to determine the suitable storage type in the order picking facility.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds