Continuous flow operation of a merge system

• Main Authors: Hinojosa, Arturo, Wan, Shanshan
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 05.01.2021
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; CONTROLLING; CONVEYING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS ORELEMENTS; PACKING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PNEUMATIC TUBE CONVEYORS; REGULATING; SHOP CONVEYOR SYSTEMS; STORING; TRANSPORT OR STORAGE DEVICES, e.g. CONVEYORS FOR LOADING ORTIPPING; TRANSPORTING

A continuous flow material handling system and method for consolidating articles into article groups, includes a plurality of article sources and a plurality of article destinations. A plurality of article merges and at least one sorter are between the article sources and destinations, with each of the merges having a plurality of queue lanes and a discharge. The at least one sorter has an inbound lane and a plurality of outbound lanes. The merges combine articles from a plurality of queue lanes and discharge to a downstream merge or sorter inbound lane. The article queue lanes of an upstream merge receiving articles from the article sources and the sorter outbound lanes discharging to the article destinations. A control system receives data from a warehouse management system (WMS). The control system activates each group at a merge in a same sequence as the group is released to the material handling system. The control activates a new group at a merge when all of the articles of the group that is already activated at that merge have cleared that merge. Approaches for group activation including revolving bubble, sliding bubble, and sliding bubble with strict sequencing.