WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW WAREHOUSE/DC PICKING STATEGIES FOR CREATE PRODUCTIVITY:

If you work in a warehouse, the word “picking” is likely to be part of your day-to-day vocabulary. But what do you know about “pick rules” and their potential impact on your warehouse operation?

Picking is one of the activities in every warehouse that can make or break the efficiency of your whole logistics operation. Investing in new warehouse software to help get orders picked and out to your customers as quickly and accurately as possible is an important business decision and one that needs careful consideration.

Get it right and you can shorten order cycle times and offer customers shorter lead times to help give you a competitive edge. This is especially important for e-commerce businesses where fast, inexpensive delivery is a key purchase driver. To help you choose the best picking system for your business, here are some points to consider:

What is a pick rule?

A pick rule is essentially a set of criteria that are programmed within your WMS software to give each order that comes into the warehouse a special rule.

Adopting pick rules has various benefits for warehouse managers, staff and the wider business, which is why we’ve pulled together five things every warehouse operative needs to know about this technology:

1. Eliminates the need for a warehouse manager to be sat at their desk:

Let’s face it, the warehouse isn’t a sit-down environment and the computer admin to manage a workforce is time-consuming and laborious. Luckily, handheld devices are self-efficient in assigning their own picks using pick rule technology.

This handy technology will free up management to make those all-important decisions from the warehouse floor and allow them to be proactive, rather than force them to be stuck behind a computer screen for hours on end.

2. Provides endless possibilities in the warehouse:

Pick rules can come in different shapes and sizes, with the ability to handle different variables such as weight, delivery method, bin number and a heap of other categories.

For example, if a picker is assigned to smaller items, they can use a small trolley with small totes for a lighter load and gain more rhythm from picking items of a similar size.

In comparison, larger items can be separated into their own picks and allocated to a forklift driver who can pick the large parts of the orders.

By grouping items into relevant categories, it eliminates any unnecessary back and forth for the picker, allowing them to maintain focus and increase their picking rates.

3. Increases efficiency in how orders are picked and dispatched:

Efficiency is key in a warehouse to ensure orders are fulfilled correctly for customers, making it even more important to have a system in place that streamlines the picking and dispatch operation.

Picking technology allows operatives to send comments on a handheld device, providing direct instructions to a picker. For example, if you were assigning a picker to cover the smaller orders, a comment could be pushed to their handheld that says, “Collect a small trolley for this assignment”.

4. Controls where pickers are positioned in the warehouse:

Pick rules enable warehouse managers to position their workforce across different sections of the floor.

For example: Pick rules can send one picker to isles A-D and another picker to isles G-H. This will spread the workers out on the warehouse floor and avoid creating a bottleneck of pickers.

5. Provides helpful business intelligence:

This enables management to make reports based on how many orders, and what types of orders, have landed in the system. Having this intelligence is not only useful for the wider business, but it can be used to provide incentives for pickers which will contribute to a happy workforce.

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