BY SUSAN K. LACEFIELD, ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR
PICKING AND PACKING
materialhandlingupdate
If your DC is typical, you’re probably
did a decade ago. Here are some tips
for improving that part of your operation.
one at
a time
doing more piece picking today than you
IF YOU’VE BEEN INVOLVED IN ORDER
fulfillment for a decade or more, there’s a
good chance you’ve seen a shift in your facility’s picking patterns. Over the last 10 years,
many DCs—particularly in the retail sector—
have found themselves picking far fewer pallets or cases and a lot more individual items or
pieces. (See sidebar for a look at what’s driving
this trend.)
And that’s no trivial change.
Compared to case or full pallet picking, piece picking is a more complex and labor-intensive operation, according to Norman E. Saenz Jr., assistant vice president at the consultancy TranSystems. Not
only does it often mean more handling, but also more totes or cartons, more pick faces, more lines
in the order (but fewer units per line), and certainly more work.
But if piece picking is going to become a bigger part of your operation, it’s important to get it right.
Here are some tips from the experts on how to pick small orders more efficiently.
1. Don’t underestimate the value of slotting.
The benefits of proper slotting (the efficient placement of items in a warehouse or DC) might seem
obvious—shorter travel times, reduced congestion, better use of space. Yet many companies fail to
master the technique and end up paying the price in efficiency.
Good slotting isn’t easy; in fact, it’s an art, says Saenz. There are a lot of factors or constraints to
consider—the SKU’s current and future velocity, its cube, its weight, seasonality, and what else ships
with it—and they often contradict one another, he explains. With so many factors to take into
account, you can’t just rely on intuition; a robust slotting tool is crucial for piece picking success.
