Ten tips for faster picking (page 3)

-- Logistics Management, 7/1/2005

Page 3 of 3

10 Offer rewards for speed and accuracy.

Implement better training and offer meaningful incentives as a way to encourage employees to make big improvements in picking speed and accuracy. Base incentives on carefully established productivity standards for work that's spread out over time and isn't chosen by the workers themselves, Silverman cautions. That prevents them from cherry-picking easier orders. "Often it's better to have team-based incentives as opposed to individual ones," he notes.

Communicating key goals to associates and tying them to salaries and bonuses can lead to big improvements, says Miller. But incentives don't have to be related to pay; they can also take the form of time off, prizes, parties, and so forth. Ask employees which non-monetary rewards would be the best motivators, suggests Teres.

Technology, Too

The recommendations offered here are largely based on procedural, rather than technological, changes. That's not to imply, though, that significant efficiency gains can't be achieved through implementing new technology. In fact, as the sidebar on Page 74 suggests, for some shippers new technology may be the only practical solution to their productivity problems.

Experts we consulted for this story, however, recommend that warehouse and distribution center managers try making procedural improvements before they decide to add expensive new technology and equipment. "If you throw equipment like pick-to-light into an operation that's poorly slotted and has bad [order picking] methods, that light system is not going to do anything," Saenz points out.

In the end, the most important thing to keep in mind is what is accomplished rather than how it's accomplished. As Miller puts it, "There's nothing wrong with a highly efficient manual system."

New WMS Improves The Works

Sometimes procedural changes alone AREN'T ENOUGH to achieve the level of improvement a shipper needs. Even the most proven techniques for boosting picking efficiency, moreover, will be undermined if the supporting technology isn't up to par.

Consider the case of The Works, a discount bookstore chain based in the United Kingdom. After a management buyout in 2003, The Works set an aggressive growth strategy, planning to expand the number of retail outlets from 232 to 400 in the next three to five years.

The expansion would require the bookseller's distribution operations to handle a significant increase in throughput. Unfortunately, the company's existing warehouse management system (WMS) was barely up to the task of handling existing order volumes, let alone taking on the challenge of a major expansion.

"The old system was rickety," says Diane Smith, The Works' WMS project manager. That system sometimes crashed, delaying order entry and slowing picking operations. "It was really a very manual process," she recalls. "We were paper picking and RF [radio frequency] picking at the same time, which really wasn't efficient."

To address those problems, the shipper replaced its old warehouse management system with a new one from RedPrairie. With the new software, picking is performed entirely with RF terminals, and The Works has gained greater visibility into inventory levels. As a result, replenishment is more accurate and efficient, and there are fewer slowdowns caused by out-of-stock items.

The new system also makes it easier for The Works to analyze orders and identify fast movers. Using the data collected by the WMS, The Works is now able to separately zone faster-selling lines and assign more pickers for those items.

The Works now gets more useful reports, too. "The picking managers can now monitor their staffs to see whether they're picking efficiently," Smith says. And it's not just warehouse management that benefits from that information. "Pickers previously would not know what the picking rates were; now they know their picking rates and whether they're improving," she explains.

It didn't take long for The Works to see quantifiable benefits after implementing its new system: According to Smith, picking efficiency improved by 25 percent in just eight weeks.

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