Supply Chain & Logistics

Strategic Warehouse
Management
Order Picking

Why Is Picking Important?

Order picking is the highest priority in the
warehouse for productivity improvements
Proportion of Time and Money Spent on Major Activities

60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Receive/Put-away

Picking

Shipping
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Support
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Why Is Picking Important?

Order picking is the most labor intensive
function
Order picking has become increasingly
difficult to manage
Smaller orders
More SKUs

Quality and service focus has resulted in

efforts to
Reduce damage
Increase accuracy
Reduce transaction times
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Order Picking Activities

Travel

62.0%

Paperwork

Search

Picking

16.0%

10.0%

12.0%

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Issue Pack Optimization

Encouraging customers to order in full pallet
or pallet increments
Enables the creation of efficient pallet, half-pallet
or quarter-pallet storage quantities

Challenges
Requires agreement and coordination with enough
customers to impact the operation
Creates an inventory cost and picking cost tradeoff
to be considered

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Pick-From-Storage
Why so many storage and picking locations?
Broken and full-case picking from a large reserve
pallet location is highly unproductive

Replenish

Reserve
Storage

Forward Picking
Pi

rd

e
in r
g

Order Picking

Packing, Sorting
& Unitizing

ta

wa

ck

Pu

Puta way

Pallet Picking

Receiving

Shipping
Cross-docking

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Pick Task Simplification

Eliminate and Combine Order Picking Tasks
When Possible
Traveling & Extracting Items
Bring pick locations to picker

Documentation
Automate information flow
Pick-to-light
RF

Picking and Sorting

Present items at waste level
Sort into totes as picked

Sorting and Packing

Small cube items can be packed directly into shipping
containers
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Order Batching
Batch orders to reduce total travel time
Increase the number of items picked per
picking tour
Reduces travel time per pick

Single line orders

Provide a natural group of order to be picked
together
Minimal downstream sortation

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Order Batching
Single Order Picking
Grocery store model
Maintains order integrity

Batch Picking
Multiple orders picked at a time
Reduces travel time
Results in additional sortation

Zone Picking
A portion of an aisle, multiple aisles, or machines
assigned to an operator for picking
Enhances productivity, accuracy and
housekeeping
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Order Picking Additional Definitions

Picking the process of finding and removing
stock from its storage area
Wave picking defined amount of work for
pickers for a set time
Batch picking picking a particular item that
is in many orders & sorting them later by
order
Sequential picking items picked in sequence
from storage areas on the same side of an aisle
Cross picking items picked in sequence
from storage areas on both sides of an aisle
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Order Picking Additional Definitions

Progressive Order Assembly
Contents of an order are passed from one zone to
the next until the order is assembled
Zone Skipping if the order has no item from a
specific zone, it is passed on to the next zone

Downstream Sortation
There is no specific order designated during the
order picking process
Orders are assembled separately
Costs to accumulate and sort can run into the
millions

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Cluster Picking
Batch order picking for increased productivity

Pick Path

Simultaneously "order pick" a set

of orders (a cluster) in one pass
through the warehouse
Configurable number of orders
per cluster
Interleave picks from each cluster
to minimize travel path
Picker can Skip or Cancel task
within clusters

6
5
4
3
2

Push Cart
with Totes
or Boxes

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Serpentine Flow
The picker-to-part order picking method

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Zone Picking
Each of five workers remain in their zones (in this case an aisle).
Here, this zone
picking operation is composed of five, independent, discrete picking
operations.

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The Fast-pick Or Forward-pick Area

Primary
picking

Restocking

Shipping

Receiving
Forward pick
Area
Reserves
picking
Reserves
Area

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Trade-offs With A Forward Pick Area

A forward pick area increases the pick density
by concentrating a large number of SKUs
within a small physical space.
On the other hand, it introduces the activity of
restocking.
Also, in general, a forward pick area concerns
the picking of smaller quantities and involves
more sophisticated equipment than the
picking activity taking place in the reserves
area. So, its deployment requires some capital
investment in equipment and (extra) space.
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LOW

Batch

Zone-Batch

Discrete

Zone

HIGH

Lines and Cube per Order

Picking Method Selection

MIXED

PURE

Order Mix

Method

Pickers per
Order

Orders per
Picker

Discrete

Single

Single

Zone

Multiple

Single

Batch

Single

Multiple

Multiple

Multiple

Zone-Batch

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If items in most
orders from same
family (pure),
then can establish
separate zone for
each family with
little zone-to-zone
transfer needed
Discrete picking
appropriate if
single order has
high number of
lines and/or cube
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Slotting
For Each SKU, Determine
Storage mode
Space allocation
Storage location
Based on item popularity and the warehouse
activity profile

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Flow-Cube Distribution for Pallet Storage

Items in the bottom
right-hand corner of
the distribution
generate the most
picking activity per
unit of storage space
and should be
assigned to the most
accessible racks.
Items in the top
right-hand require
equipment with
greater cube
utilization while still
being accessible.

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Flow-Cube Distribution for Piece Storage

Items in the bottom
right-hand corner
of the distribution
do not have to be
replenished as
frequently as those
in the top righthand corner and
can be stored in
carousels and
dispensers, which
allow for very
efficient picking but
are difficult to
replenish.

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Pick Sequencing
Sequence pick location visits to reduce travel
time
The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP)
Complex mathematical modeling

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A serpentine pick path can result in unnecessary travel

(in this case along aisles 3 and 6).

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A modified path outline that sorts aisles 46 but not their

locations.

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Example of branch-and-pick

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Layout on the right allows the operator more flexibility

for items C,D,E

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Popular items should be stored as close to the travel path

as possible

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Bucket Brigades
Coordinating workers who are progressively
assembling product along a flow line in which there
are fewer workers than stations
Carry work forward, from station to station, until
someone takes over your work; then go back for more
No unattended work-in-process is allowed in the
system
Workers carry each product as far toward completion
as possible
Sequenced from slowest to fastest along the direction
of material flow
A classic Pull System

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Bucket Brigades
Insignificant Walkback Time
The total time to assemble a product is
significantly greater than the total time for the
workers to handoff their work and walk back to
get more work

Total Ordering Of Workers By Velocity

Each worker can be classified be the speed with
which they perform their tasks

Smoothness, Predictability Of Work

The work-content of the product is spread
continuously and uniformly along the flow line

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Bucket Brigade Impact

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Bucket brigades at Wawa

Switching to bucket brigades allowed Wawa to use narrow aisles
without congestion because there is no passing under bucket
brigades. Narrow aisles also freed up space for two additional
aisles.

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