Warehouse Management System

Abstract

A warehouse management system is provided using computing equipment and wireless communications between beacons providing worker locations in a warehouse. The system employs software running on the computing equipment to ascertain missing products for orders being shipped from packing stations in a product warehouse, and to assign workers with the shortest determined travel time over travel routes in the warehouse, to retrieve the missing product and move it to the packing station.

Claims

1. A warehouse management system comprising: a computer having electronic memory; storage locations for products stored in said warehouse being stored in said electronic memory; packing station locations for packaging orders for said products being stored in electronic memory; travel routes through said warehouse running between said locations for said products and said packing stations being stored in electronic memory; said computer running software warehouse management software for the task of communicating retrieval assignments to workers in the warehouse, said retrieval assignments tasking respective said workers to move along said travel routes to a respective storage location of a product which is required, and transport the product which is required, along said travel routes to a said packing station location; beacons engaged to each of said workers, said beacons wirelessly broadcasting a beacon signal, said beacon signal including a beacon identifier associated with a respective individual said worker; receivers positioned in said warehouse which receive the beacon signal from said beacons, said receivers communicating each respective beacon signal received from a said beacon, to said computer; location determining software running on said computer, said location determining software employing said beacon signal from said receivers to calculate a worker location of said workers upon said travel routes; wireless communications equipment for communication of assignment messages from said computer to said workers, and travel time calculation software running on said computer, said time calculation software calculating a time duration required for movement of respective workers from their determined respective worker location, to the storage location of the product which is required, wherein a wireless communication of an assignment message is communicated to a respective said worker having a determined shortest said time duration along said travel routes to said storage location, to retrieve the required product from said storage location and move it to said packing station.

2. The warehouse management system of claim 1, additionally comprising: traffic sensors for determining slowed travel times through congestion locations on said routes through said warehouse; and said travel time calculation software running on said computer, including said slowed travel times through said congestion locations in calculating said time duration required for movement of respective workers from their determined respective worker location, to the storage location of the product.

3. The warehouse management system of claim 1, additionally comprising: said location determining software running on said computer concurrently employing said beacon signal from said receivers to calculate secondary worker locations of secondary workers traveling upon said travel routes toward said packing station; and said wireless communication of said assignment message to said worker to retrieve the required product from said storage location and move it to said packing station includes directions to a secondary location of said secondary worker and instructions to give the required product to said secondary worker for transport to said packing station.

4. The warehouse management system of claim 2, additionally comprising: said location determining software running on said computer concurrently employing said beacon signal from said receivers to calculate secondary worker locations of secondary workers traveling upon said travel routes toward said packing station; and said wireless communication of said assignment message to said worker to retrieve the required product from said storage location and move it to said packing station includes directions to a secondary location of said secondary worker and instructions to give the required product to said secondary worker for transport to said packing station.

5. A method for warehouse management employing a computer with electronic memory, beacons transmitting electronic signals engaged to and identifying each or a plurality of workers, receivers for said electronic signals in operative communication with said computer, and wireless communications equipment for messages from the computer to the workers, comprising the steps of: inputting storage locations to the electronic memory for a plurality of products stored in a warehouse; inputting packing station locations within said warehouse to said electronic memory; inputting travel routes through said warehouse running between said locations for said products and said packing stations to said electronic memory; running warehouse management software on said computer and determining missing products from orders being packed at said packing stations; communicating said electronic beacon signals from said beacons which are received by said receivers, to said computer; using location determining software running on said computer for each worker's location upon said travel routes; using travel time calculation software running on said computer to calculate a time duration required for movement of respective workers from their respective location upon said travel routes to a storage location of said missing products; and wirelessly communicating an assignment message to a respective said worker having a determined shortest said time duration along said travel routes, to said storage location, to retrieve the required product from said storage location and move it to said packing station.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING FIGURES

[0030] FIG. 1 depicts a graphical depiction of an optimized warehouse management system (WMS) herein employing real-time location information of humans and robotic workers and calculations of times for each to complete the product retrieval tasks at hand.

[0031] FIG. 2 shows a flow chart example of one preferred mode of the management system disclosed herein using beacons communicating real-time robot and worker locations to receivers as related to product transport from storage to packing stations in a warehouse.

[0032] FIG. 3 depicts a conventional prior art warehouse management system which is task-oriented and lacking in location determination for task assignment of workers.

[0033] It should be noted the steps in the system herein may be reordered and that other aspects of the present invention shall be more readily understood when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and the following detailed description, neither of which should be considered limiting.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

[0034] In this description, any directional prepositions if employed, such as up, upwardly, down, downwardly, front, back, top, upper, bottom, lower, left, right and other such terms refer to the device or depictions as such may be oriented are describing such as it appears in the drawings and are used for convenience only. Such terms of direction and location are not intended to be limiting or to imply that the device or method herein has to be used or positioned with graphics in any particular orientation.

[0035] Further, computer and network terms such as network, database, electronic memory, computer, digital files, scanner, scanned identifier, and other terms are for descriptive purposes only, and should not be considered limiting, due to the wide variance in the art as to such terms depending on which practitioner is employing them. The system herein should be considered to include any and all manner of computing devices operatively engaged with electronic memory, software, firmware, operating systems, executable programs, files and file formats, databases, computer languages and networks and the like, as would occur to one skilled in the art in any manner as they would be described. The term worker or picker, includes both human and robotic workers.

[0036] Now referring to drawings of the system of FIGS. 1-2 and prior art system of FIG. 3, there is seen in FIG. 1 a graphic depiction of the system 10 herein. In the system assigned and uncompleted product retrieval tasks and confirmation or failure to accomplish such are continuously directly communicated between the WMS system running in electronic memory on a computer with wireless communications capability to each picker or worker, from and between individual components and pickers operating in the system. Each product has a scannable identifier which when scanned will inform the system it has been retrieved, transported, and/or delivered to a packing station.

[0037] As shown, the location of each picker or worker in a warehouse holding products for shipment in known locations, is constantly provided to the system. This includes locations of a human worker 12 and/or robotic worker such as a robotic pick cart 14, robot 16, or pick to light 18. Such location determination is provided by a beacon engaged to each human or robotic worker, which continuously wirelessly transmits a beacon signal containing an identifier which is associated with the respective human or robotic worker.

[0038] Wireless signals communicated to the location software of the system 10 running in electronic memory of a computer, from beacon receivers for the wireless broadcast of each beacon on each worker, located in known physical locations in the warehouse, are employed by location determining software running on the system computer, to determine the exact current location in the warehouse, in real time, of each human or robotic worker. Such location software is adapted to the task of receiving the signals from one or a plurality of receivers, and calculating a location of each worker based on signal triangulation or similar calculations. Each wireless beacon transmission will communicate an identifier for the beacon which correlates to the individual worker, so the system can determine where each worker is positioned in real time, in the warehouse. By beacon is meant any electronic transmitter employing wireless transmissions such as radio or light transmission, which may be received by any of a plurality of beacon signal receivers for such transmissions, located in known positions along travel routes through the warehouse.

[0039] Using a map of travel routes through the warehouse, for both robotic and human workers which is stored in electronic memory, and the determined current locations of each human and robotic worker in the warehouse, the potential travel routes in the warehouse to any given product pick, are continually tracked by the WMS system 10. As noted, this ongoing location tracking and task assignment or reassignment based on the current location determined for each human and robotic worker is lacking in conventional prior art systems depicted in FIG. 3.

[0040] As noted above, in an example of the system 10 in operation in FIG. 2, a significant shortcoming of conventional systems is remedied by this real time current location tracking of all picking workers be they humans or robotic workers, and the fastest route calculation from such respective current locations to a required product at the packing station, in the assignment of product picking tasks. As shown, be it a product pick of multiple products needed for an order at a packing station, or the occurrence of a short pick 20 where a product to complete an order at the packing station is required, significant costs in time and efficiency occur in conventional systems. This is because the package being readied for shipment at the packing station cannot be finished because it is short by one or more products. Thus, the unshipped package and concurrently the worker trying to ship it from the packing station, are left in limbo while a remedy is sought to solve the short pick 20.

[0041] In the system 10 herein as shown in FIG. 2, a worker, be they human or robot, is dispatched 22 to retrieve the product causing the short pick and move it to the packing station requiring it. This dispatch 22 is based on the real-time determined current location 24 of the worker in the warehouse based on wireless transmissions to one or multiple beacon receivers in known locations, along the electronically stored routes of travel to products in the warehouse. Using a determined real-time location of each worker in the warehouse, the time calculation software running on the computer, adapted to the task of rendering a calculation of the time it will take for workers in known locations to get to a product location of the required product causing the short pick 20, along stored routes for the worker to travel, is determined. A retrieving worker is selected 24 from the workers in the warehouse, based on the shortest time calculation from a worker's current location, along the known routes through the warehouse to the product location, which is the subject of the short pick 20.

[0042] Assignment to move to the location along the travel routes is communicated to the worker wirelessly. In the case of human workers, this assignment may be a voice communication using a radio or the like, or a text communication to a viewable display readable by the human worker. In the case of robotic workers, this assignment to move to the product location and retrieve the required product for the packing station, can be sent by wireless communication to the robot computer operating to control the robotic worker movement through the warehouse. Such electronic communications are well known in the art.

[0043] The system 10 may also have traffic sensors or traffic monitors located in the warehouse, along the routes of travel which as noted are stored in electronic memory. Such traffic sensors may be electronic lights, cameras viewing traffic routes where congestion may be determined by camera signals showing pixels in routes of congestion being filled by workers or products, weight sensors along routes, or other traffic sensors adapted to communicate an electronic signals to the time calculation software of the system, where the signals are employed to determine congestion locations along known routes. The time required to traverse such congestion locations can be included by the time calculation software, in determining travel times to a product for workers to select a worker 24 to retrieve a product.

[0044] Additionally, the time it will take the chosen worker dispatched 22 to get to the product which is short picked, and move the product to the packing station to allow an order to be closed out, may also be included by the time calculation software in determining a worker 24 to retrieve a product.

[0045] In a next step, once the missing product has been retrieved by the assigned worker such as a robot or human, the assigned worker can move to transport the product 26 to the packing station needing the short pick 20 which is causing the order to be delayed from shipment. Alternatively, if the short pick 20 resulted from a first worker signaling during their respective assignment to retrieve a missing product, that they could not retrieve the missing product, that first worker assigned to retrieve the missing product causing the short pick, can be assigned to meet a secondary worker who will be assigned to retrieve the missing product from a secondary location 28. The secondary worker can pass the product to the first worker for transport to the packing station.

[0046] Either route is achievable because the system herein continuously tracks and knows the respective location of each worker, be they human or a robotic worker, along known pathways within the warehouse, and employees a known and electronically stored physical location of each product, to continuously determine and assign and reassign each such human or robotic worker, to pick a product based on the product known location and the worker current location. Further, as noted, the system 10 can assign the human or robotic worker retrieving a missing pick product, to meet a secondary worker or picker 28 based on the real-time location of each, so that the product causing the missing pick, may be handed off to the secondary worker who is currently determined as moving to or toward the packing station which is missing one or more products.

[0047] Finally, once the missing product or products have been retrieved by the assigned human or robotic worker, and either directly transported to the packing station with the open order needing it, or handed off to another human or robotic worker going to or toward that packing station, to thereby conclude the products needed to ship the order, the system is notified the order is complete 30. Thus, the system 10 using real-time locations of all human or robotic pickers in the warehouse, known routes through the warehouse, and determined congested route areas, can continuously assign picking tasks and direct hand offs or direct transports to packing station having the open order, using worker current location and time calculations for each human or robotic worker, which can also include calculations on route traffic therebetween.

[0048] While all of the fundamental characteristics and features of the warehouse management system herein have been shown and described herein, with reference to particular embodiments thereof, a latitude of modification, various changes and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosure and it will be apparent that in some instances, some features of the invention may be employed without a corresponding use of other features without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth. It should also be understood that upon reading this disclosure and becoming aware of the disclosed novel and useful warehouse management system herein, that various substitutions, modifications, and variations may occur to and be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Consequently, all such modifications and variations and substitutions, as would occur to those skilled in the art are considered included within the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims.