Abstract: A system may receive orders from disparate sources, each order specifying at least one item located in a physical storage area divided into subareas. The orders may be prioritized for desired processing sequence. The system may determine, beginning with high priority orders specifying at least two items for each order, a virtual order footprint that represents all of the subareas corresponding to the items in the order and form a plurality of virtual potential pick batches, each virtual potential pick batch comprising orders in a unique virtual order footprint. When a configurable limit is reached, the number of orders in each virtual potential pick batch is determined. The order counts are a factor in determining which of the virtual potential pick batches are to be released for processing by available work resources. All other non-selected virtual potential pick batches are deconstructed awaiting the future availability of work resources.