TWO WAYS TO SAVE MONEY IN DISTRIBUTION AND warehousing operations are minimizing obsolete inventory and increasing employee productivity. Minimizing cost and maximizing productivity are achieved by planning where fast-moving inventory is stocked and designing employees' work. Most warehouse professionals consider order picking one of the more critical functions in distribution operations. It is one of the most customer-sensitive, labor-intensive, and complex tasks of warehouse functions; consequently, it must be as cost effective as possible.

Traditionally, stocking product

for optimal material handling movements, or slotting, takes into account only the product movement velocity for product storage. Product movement velocity--commonly called turns--refers to how fast a product is stocked and then picked for orders over a period of time. To reach higher productivity, stocking products by taking the order selector's human factors into account is important. Stocking products that are picked more often than others at the most common reach heights for the worker population is believed to increase worker picking productivity. And there may be other tangible benefits for this type of storage method, such as the reduction of worker compensation claims.

The purpose of this article is to define and demonstrate the efficiency of the basic rule of assigning and stocking fast-moving products or high-velocity items to better selecting locations in the order picking system. A better location is one that provides faster and more ergonomic access to the stored product. For example, a pallet flow rack is an angled gravity rack that holds pallets and pick-faces from which order selectors take product. In a pallet flow rack, the pick-face is in front of the order-picker. This area is known as the golden zone and is a better ergonomic position than a pick-face that the order-picker has to bend down to reach.

The four basics

This article lays out best practices for slotting inventory to get optimal picking performance while minimizing picking labor. It also describes how to conduct a study to stock products with respect to ergonomics so that manual order picking can be performed productively. The following warehousing and distribution background elucidate the impact of this kind of study.

Slotting or storage layout planning of the warehouse is crucial to warehouse cost efficiency. The relationship of slotting to order picking is often overlooked, but warehousing best practices emphasize the relationship. Because order picking is time sensitive, it is important that clients get orders within promised lead-times. Warehouses have to stock products so that order picking can be optimal. It may be a trade-off to take more time to stock inventory in an optimal picking location rather than minimize stocking time. But sacrificing customer lead-times when making order selection less efficient is not a wise choice.