Pick and Pack Best Practices
The most important goal of a warehouse operation is to fulfill customer orders efficiently in a timely and cost effective manner. Timely could mean same hour, day, or week. Cost effective is relative to what the customer and market dictate – fast turnaround will typically be more costly than preparing for a weekly delivery.
To help improve this process, consider how people and product flow and what are the factors that resist smooth flow. Think about fingerprints and footprints, moves and touches – how can you reduce the number of times a product is touched and how far it is moved during pick and pack.
The key metrics related to the picking and packing process are:
On Time Ready to Ship – Having orders ready for pickup by a carrier at the appointed time is important, but having those orders take up staging space by prepping them hours or days ahead is not a good thing.
Lines Picked and Shipped per Hour – Focus on lines picked. Consider the flow, touches and distance moved. Measure and compare productivity by associate or team.
Internal Order Cycle Time – Look specifically at the time between pick release and packing/Load Consolidation. Do you have opportunities to compress this time?
Picking Accuracy – If not 100% do a root cause analysis to determine cause and use the learnings to improve by training people and fixing processes.
Fill Rate – A great measure of supply chain success, but not for measuring outbound operations. Products cannot be filled if they are not available. This is a planning problem, not a picking problem.
A few ways to improve the picking and packing process:
- Organize the storage areas for easy access and pick flow.
- Identify the storage locations using a standard scheme –Bldg/Zone, Aisle, Column, Shelf, Position using barcoded labels.
- Add a dedicated picking area or module for high velocity fast movers and promos.
- Identify the product using common industry standard labels and barcodes.
- Have the right equipment for the task – varies by situation.
- Locate products in the right place. Slot those most often picked near packing/shipping and slow movers further away.
Source: http://www.werc.org