System and method for the joint picking of breakable and unbreakable articles

Abstract

It is disclosed a method for picking, in accordance with the goods-to-man principle, a plurality of different articles in accordance with orders, wherein preferably at least one of the orders comprises both fragile and non-fragile articles, which are to be packed together into a shipping container, in a storage and order-picking system, wherein the storage and order-picking system comprises: a warehouse where the articles are stored as storage units, each respectively containing articles of one type only; a plurality of picking-and-packing stations, wherein each picking-and-packing station comprises at least one collecting zone and is configured to buffer a plurality of the articles and to provide the shipping container; a conveying system connecting the warehouse to the picking-and-packing stations; and a controlling unit configured to assign the orders to the picking-and-packing stations, to monitor the picking, and to control material flow; wherein the method comprises the following steps: collecting a plurality of orders; batch-orientated analyzing the collected orders by the controlling unit; batch-orientated assigning the analyzed orders to the picking-and-packing stations by the controlling unit, wherein each of the analyzed orders is assigned to, preferably one of, the collecting zones; article-orientated conveying the storage units via the conveying system from the warehouse to the picking-and-packing stations; removing, preferably manually, the articles conveyed to the picking-and-packing stations, and order-orientated distributing the removed articles to the corresponding collecting zones by depositing the removed articles in the corresponding collecting zones; and packing the collected articles into the shipping container at the corresponding picking-and-packing stations.