Planning and controlling automated layer pickers

Abstract

Disclosed are techniques for determining and controlling automated layer pick operations. A computer system can receive, from a warehouse management system, a layer pick planning request for at least one order and determine an initial feasible solution for completing the request. The computer system can determine: initial batches of pallets based on grouping destination pallets that require layers of items from same source pallets, corresponding batch scores, initial locations of the pallets based on assigning locations in a pick area to the source and destination pallets, corresponding location scores, initial schedules for the initial batches based on determining an order of tasks to complete each batch, and corresponding schedule scores. For each batch, the computer system can iteratively adjust the initial schedule, initial locations based on the adjusted schedule, and initial batches based on the adjusted schedule and adjusted locations. The computer system can then identify a heuristic solution.