When you’re designing and starting a warehouse, you want it to be as efficient as possible. At the same time, it may not be possible to have full knowledge of how the equipment and systems will interact. You can mitigate this warehouse design risk by testing prototypes of the warehouse equipment before you buy and … Read more
So you’re serious about improving picking efficiency in your building. You know that picking accounts for around 55% of labor in most operations. Travel time is most of picking labor Of that 55% we see the following distribution of activity: It’s obvious from the table that since travel takes the most time, improvement efforts should … Read more
Let’s talk about the basic process of warehouse picking. Picking is the selection of items that are in storage so that they can be prepared for shipment. Here is an overview of this fundamental process. Another great reference by Ed Frazelle for an overview of warehousing processes and analysis is here. But today we’re just … Read more
Part of warehouse efficiency is effective supervision. Most warehouse and distribution center shift work is defined by fixed periods of work for their teams. These periods of work – the shifts – are the basic unit of supervisor output. So supervisor management of the shifts is very important to managing labor cost. The setup of … Read more
Having great warehouse efficiency means having great process quality. One of my favorite charts shows how the cost of fixing bugs goes up exponentially through stages of software deployment: Managing quality in a warehouse is very similar. Fixing something downstream takes orders of magnitude more effort than doing it right the first time. But quality … Read more