Guide 14 of 20
Picking, slotting and productivity
Optimized pick trips, where to store each product and how the team performs.
What it's for
Walking is most of picking time: batching orders, storing what sells most close by and measuring performance cut that time.
Step by step
- 1
Pick trips
Create the orders' pick tasks and ask the optimizer (OR-Tools) to group orders on carts — each order in its own tote — with the least walking. Compare with picking order by order, check the route in 3D and assign each trip to a picker.
- 2
Product slotting
Works out where each product should live: the most-picked close to the start and to shipping, at waist height, and heavy items low. It shows today's walking against the proposal and creates the relocations that save the most.
- 3
Productivity
Tasks per hour, performance against the team's usual pace, time on tasks versus shift, where the time goes (walk, pick, confirm), scan errors and each person's day event by event.
Example: Less walking
At Acme, 22 orders are picked in 6 trips with 388 m of walking instead of 854 m order by order (−55 %), and the proposed slotting cuts monthly walking from 66 to 50 km.
Tips
- Set the cart right (totes, weight and volume): the optimizer never overloads it.
- Create the highest-saving relocations first; they're few and pay off a lot.