The picking process is a fundamental role in the warehousing and distribution process. Making this process as effective and efficient as possible is crucial to the long term success of any distribution centre or warehouse.

A picker’s time can be broken down into three different sub sections.

-Travel time (walking or driving to each location)
-Picking time (actually picking the specified products)
-Remaining activities (such as closing / moving a box, removing a pick list or removing empty boxes etc).

Cliff Holste (Supply Chain Digest) comments that a pickers “travel time can account for 50% or more of total order picking time” (see article) and therefore it is essential that this time a picker takes is minimised and devised as the most efficient route for that pick and over the long term. Without using efficient pick routing picker’s can spend a majority of their time travelling, re-walking routes and wasting valuable picking time.

Automated pick routing devises the most efficient route for each picker to take for each pick ‘run’ and optimises loading within the warehouse. The system scans the barcode then distributes to different picking stations throughout the warehouse balancing the pick operation. Picker’s are routed through the warehouse to reduce footfall and increase efficiency.

To find out more about pick routing visit www.keymas.co.uk

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 3:29 pm and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.