Picking routes: the cheapest productivity win you have

Ask a warehouse manager where the time goes and they will usually point at picking. Ask what they have tried and the answer is almost always more people, not a better route.

Most pick lists are still worked in the order the order was typed, not the order the items sit on the shelf. That means a picker can walk the length of a warehouse twice for two items sitting three metres apart, because line four was entered before line seventeen.

Sequencing beats speed

A picker who walks a sensible route at a normal pace consistently beats one who rushes a bad one. Sequencing pick lists by bin location, not by order line, is the single change we see save the most time for the least cost — no new racking, no new headcount.

Zones make it worse or better

Once a warehouse has more than one zone, routing has to respect zone boundaries too, or pickers end up crossing the floor to grab one item and coming straight back. Batch picking by zone, then consolidating at packing, usually beats a single picker carrying one order end to end.

We start every warehouse engagement by walking an actual pick list with a stopwatch. It is the fastest way to find the metres nobody needed to walk.

If this sounds like your operation, we can walk through your process and show you where Logirynx would fit.

Talk to our team