DC Velocity - June 2011

SUPPLY CHAIN EDUCATIONAL SERIES DEVELOPED BY DEMATIC

Fostering Supply Chain Education DEMATIC UNIVERSITY

Piece Picking In Overdrive

Goods to Person

When the piece picking function is optimized, it impacts everything. From processing time, warehouse space, order accuracy to ergonomics and speed, it’s an industrial engineering opportunity waiting for improvement. In addition, today’s fulfillment operations are impacted by additional complexities: wide variance in order profiles, larger swings in daily volume, and seasonal/promotional peak periods that stress everything.

An industrial engineering solution that optimizes piece picking is the “goods to person” method. Goods to person order fulfillment is all about efficiently staging and then transferring SKUs to the order selector with speed and accuracy in a comfortable work environment. This method is smarter, faster, and more ergonomic than other piece pick systems.

Smarter

The operator stays in one place while items are delivered to the pick station in precise sequence. Heavy items first, fragile items last, by family group or in whatever sequence that makes the most sense. It’s also, smarter because it allows ultra high pick accuracy. Typically, only one SKU is presented to the operator at a time so there is no opportunity to pick the wrong item. The pick station design allows the highest possible worker productivity. With a fast tote exchange, the operator doesn’t have to wait for the next item to be picked.

Faster

Product for picking flows into the pick station smoothly and consistently- that’s made possible by an automated inventory staging buffer. This is the “engine” that supports high picking rates. Furthermore, it is compact and typically uses 30 to 65 percent less floor space than other systems. There is no dedicated pick face. So slotting and re-slotting the warehouse is unnecessary, and so is the complex and ongoing churn of SKU velocity analysis.

Ergonomic

In addition to sustained productivity, the workstation is designed for employee comfort. The operator only picks in the “golden zone”. There is no need to move hands above the shoulder or extend arms beyond a comfortable reach. The operator screen adjusts for height and angle to minimize neck strain. Since loads are automatically delivered to and removed from the workstation, operators never need to lift or push cartons and totes. The ergonomic design and simple, icon-driven operator touch screen allows the pick station to meet Universal Access guidelines.

Operational Flexibility

Staff can work in parallel, unaffected by each other’s pace. Pick stations can be opened and closed according to volume on a particular shift. And, there’s redundancy in this configuration since items can be processed at any location as the workstations are completely decoupled. The system is not affected by changes in order profile. For example, single item orders and multi item orders are accommodated with equal efficiency. This means that trends, like more orders with fewer order lines, don’t compromise productivity.

It’s a high performance solution that creates logistics results. Goods to person, the most productive way to provide high rate piece picking in a compact and ergonomic environment.