Picking shuttle and method for picking within a shuttle-rack aisle

Abstract

It is disclosed a method for picking a product according to a picking order, which preferably belongs to a group of previously collected picking orders, by shuttles cooperating with each other in a shuttle rack storage system comprising a rack-storage block and a plurality of shuttles which are movable in a force-guided manner in a rack aisle defined between two rack rows on different rack levels, the method comprising the following steps: moving a first shuttle of the cooperating shuttles in a longitudinal direction of the rack-storage block along the rack aisle to a rack storage location in a first rack level, and subsequently (horizontally) retrieving a source container, which contains the product specified by the picking order, from the rack storage location onto the first shuttle; moving a second shuttle of the cooperating shuttles into and along the rack aisle at level of a higher second rack level (overlapping) over the previously lower-positioned first shuttle so that a gripping unit (fixedly) mounted on the second shuttle can remove the product from the source container positioned on the first shuttle; and delivering the product from the retrieved source container positioned on the first shuttle into a collecting container by: removing the product from the retrieved source container, which is positioned on the first shuttle, with the gripping unit of the second shuttle; and delivering the removed product to the collecting container positioned on one of the shuttles positioned lower than the second shuttle within the rack aisle (overlapping in the vertical direction), or positioned, lower than the second shuttle, at one end of the rack aisle.