DE2406378

A warehousing system comprises an array of storage bins arranged in vertical tiers with the tiers arranged in rows having access aisles extending along the rows. A mobile vertical lift moves along the ends of the aisles and carries thereon a mobile transfer vehicle which can be elevated by the mobile vertical lift to any desired storage level and discharged therefrom onto rails extending along each storage level of each access aisle. The self-powered mobile transfer vehicle includes means for transferring loads between the vehicle and a storage bin. At least one of the transfer vehicles in the system is a tier picking vehicle including a vacuum operated picking head mounted to be lowered and raised between the picking vehicle and a second or make-up transfer vehicle positioned immediately below. In one embodiment, the vacuum picking head is mounted on extensible arms of the tier picking vehicle and can be extended into a storage bin such that the tiers of articles are picked directly from a palletized load in a storage location. The arms are then retracted whereupon the picked tier of articles is lowered onto the make-up transfer vehicle in the same aisle and positioned below and in alignment with the tier picking vehicle. In other embodiments, a retrieval and a make-up vehicle are positioned in the aisle below the tier picking vehicle which shuttles along the aisle to be alternately aligned with one or the other to transfer tiers or partial tiers from a pallet on the retrieval vehicle to the make-up vehicle.