Feb 27, 2024 | Solutions - By Function
Put Wall Solutions
Simple, Efficient, Affordable Order Fulfillment
A put wall is a collection of compartments into which products can be places as an intermediate step in order fulfillment. When used for e-commerce order fulfillment, for example, each compartment contains a customer order. For store replenishment, put wall compartments contain orders for particular stores. Put walls often employ one side for putting products into compartments and the other side for packing completed orders.
Put wall technology employs lights on each of the individual put-side compartments to support the light-directed putting tasks. Likewise, lights are optionally used on the pack side to highlight completed orders. To fulfill a collection of orders, the required products are first gathered in bulk and transported to the put wall. The individual items are then scanned which causes one or more lights on compartments in the put wall to display the quantity needed for an individual order.
When all of the products for a given order have been placing into the proper compartments, lights on the pack side of the put wall are activated to indicate that the order is ready to pack. Variations in this strategy can be employed to allow multiple workers to complete putting and packing tasks concurrently at the same put wall.
- Put walls are ideal when picking low-velocity SKU’s from large areas.
- Put walls provide efficient strategies for order building for both individual e-commerce orders and store orders.
- Optionally integrates with cart-based batch picking system for gathering bulk products.
- Needed items arrive at the put wall, are scanned, and lights associated with individual compartments indicate orders requiring the scanned product.
- Lights on the pack side highlight completed orders.
- Employs barcode scanning to identify a particular product and light-directed putting to place the product into the correct compartment
- Items can be picked in bulk for multiple put walls
- Can dynamically allocated compartments to orders
- Supports multiple workers working simultaneously on both the put and pack sides
- Can process waves with more orders than put wall compartments by reusing compartment that have been packed
- Fast and accurate order fulfillment for e-commerce and store replenishment
- Paperless operation
- Scalable and flexible to accommodate changing business needs
- Easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to maintain
- Speeds fulfillment by using multiple workers simultaneously on both the put and pack sides
- Reduces walking time by dynamically assigning orders to compartments close to the last put location
Feb 15, 2024 | order fulfillment
Light-directed picking is already a widely accepted approach to order picking that utilizes visual cues, typically in the form of light projections or displays, to guide warehouse operators through the order fulfillment process. In essence, it transforms the way goods are picked and packed, introducing a level of precision and speed that traditional methods struggle to match. Imagine a system that seamlessly directs warehouse personnel to the exact location of items, guiding them through the most optimal routes, and providing real-time information on the quantity and type of items to be picked. This method eliminates the need for paper-based systems or handheld devices, providing a hands-free, intuitive, and error-free experience for the workforce. Hence, it is no surprise that this dynamic technology has become more widely accepted. Below we delve into the key features that have made light-directed picking the industry standard for quick and cost-effective order fulfillment operations.
Why Light-Directed Picking is Effective
Increased Accuracy: The key and most important benefit of light-directed picking lies in its ability to guide operators with great precision. As warehouse personnel navigate through the aisles, lights illuminate the specific location of items, ensuring that they pick the right product in the right quantity. This accuracy not only minimizes errors but also significantly accelerates the order fulfillment process, enhancing overall operational efficiency.
Optimized Workflows: Light-directed picking optimizes the flow of warehouse operations. The latest solutions offer order batching with sophisticated AI-powered computations, ensuring that operators follow the most efficient paths to pick multiple orders simultaneously. This intelligent approach can significantly reduce travel time and enhance overall picking speed. By guiding operators along the most efficient paths, it reduces unnecessary travel time, leading to faster order fulfillment and increased overall productivity.
Real-Time Inventory Management: As operators pick items, the system updates inventory levels in real-time. This not only enhances inventory accuracy but also provides management with up-to-the-minute insights into stock levels and order progress.
Reduced Training Time: In the fast-paced world of logistics, time is of the essence. The intuitive nature of light-directed picking solutions makes them very easy to learn. Usually, they require minimal training, allowing your workforce to swiftly adapt and integrate the technology into their daily routines. With visual cues guiding their every move, training periods are significantly reduced, and new personnel can quickly become proficient.
Adaptability to Varied Workflows: Light directed picking is a very flexible technology that can be applied in a wide variety of operational setups, no matter how small or large. Batch picking, wave picking, zone picking, pick cells, put walls are just some of the many options. This versatility makes the technology suitable for a wide range of industries and operations.
Short Payback Times and Scalability: Light directed picking is a very affordable technology that can easily be applied as an entry level improvement of operations. It speeds up order picking virtually eliminating errors in the process, improving picker productivity by a factor of 2 or more. This makes for extremely short ROI periods, typically less than a year. The cost effectiveness, easy implementation and modular nature of the technology also allows easy scaling according to needs and responsiveness to surges in demand.
In conclusion, light-directed picking technology is more than a solution; it’s a strategic investment in the future of order fulfillment. The convergence of speed, precision, adaptability, and smart technology positions this solution as a catalyst for transformative change in order fulfillment. Contact ABCO Systems today to learn more and explore how you can implement light-directed picking technology in your operations.
Jan 26, 2024 | Solutions - By Function, Solutions - by Product
Solutions
Pick Cell Solutions
Pick-to-light is a proven order-fulfillment technology that has continued to evolve to meet changing needs within distribution centers. It has created a small-footprint pick-to-light system – called a micro pick cell – that is implemented with minimal infrastructure and orchestrated by a tablet computer. A typical micro pick cell might employ perhaps 100 pick locations, each equipped with an adjacent light module to highlight the pick location and the pick quantity. Micro pick cells offer the speed and accuracy advantages of light-directed picking in a compact, cost-effective implementation. Multiple independent micro pick cells can be employed concurrently to achieve high fulfillment speeds.
The Old Method
Typical applications employ multiple pick cells with a single picker assigned to each pick cell. A conveyor transports shipping containers, such has a box or a bag, to the micro pick cells. As shipping containers arrive at the micro pick cells, workers retrieve them from the conveyor and scan a barcode on the container that corresponds to the customer order. Scanning the barcode causes lights within the cell to display the quantity of each SKU the order requires from the cell. The worker retrieves the required quantities of each needed SKU, as directed by the lighted displays, and places them into the container. Finally, the worker places the container back onto the conveyor which transports it to the shipping area.
The Latest Method
Micro pick cells have proven especially useful in applications such as subscription box fulfilment where a huge number of orders must be fulfilled quickly, but the number of SKUs might only be only a few hundred. The concept is highly scalable since, at any given time, the number of micro pick cells employed can be increased or decreased to match the current workload. Variations on the micro pick cell concept are possible to meet the specific needs of particular applications.
- The picking area is divided into pick cells, and a picker is assigned to each pick cell.
- All product locations must employ lights to highlight pick locations and display pick quantities.
- Picking within a pick cell is typically limited to one order at a time.
- Pick Cell systems work well when all products in an order are fast movers.
- Uses a light-sensitive proximity switch to confirm picks rather than a mechanical button
- Optionally supports displays of text and graphics on a monitor within each pick cell
- Provides efficient and Conveyors Systemsscalable order-fulfillment strategies for applications such as subscription box fulfillment
- Easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to maintain
- Pickers can become highly productive with minimal training
- Well suited for:
- Emerging micro-fulfillment centers
- Kitting and sequencing of parts required for high-speed manufacturing assembly lines
Jan 26, 2024 | Solutions - By Function, Solutions - by Product
Solutions
Dynamic Slotting
Dynamic Slotting is a technique available in some Warehouse Management Systems in which a forward pick location is created dynamically, rather than being dedicated to a single SKU.
This capability is needed in two primary situations: The first is when there aren’t enough pick locations to handle all SKUs a DC carries, so some groups of locations for forward-case and/or piece-picking are left empty, awaiting temporary assignment of SKUs, based on demand for some period, such as a wave or a shift.
The Transformative Power of Automation:
When the WMS sees there is no assigned location for a SKU in a wave or order pool, it will assign those SKUs to empty locations and create tasks to move the inventory to each location needed to meet the demand.
From there, it’s like a normal pick from a slotted location – the one difference is that when the picks are complete and the location is now empty again, it is freed from the temporary SKU assignment and is available for another dynamic slotting process.
If any inventory remains in the location after the picking demand is met, the WMS will direct that inventory to be put back into reserve storage.
Additional Consideration
The second scenario for use of dynamic slotting is when demand for a SKU in a wave or general order pool far exceeds the storage capacity of the forward pick location for that SKU. This could mean many replenishments would be needed to meet all that demand.
That volume spike for a SKU can happen based just on the natural variation in demand, or be the result of promotional activity.
A WMS capable of supporting dynamic slotting should have parameters that control under what conditions – for example, the percent of demand above a slot’s capacity – dynamic slotting is triggered.
Here again, we need some empty slots – in some cases, these may be simply identified locations on the floor near the active pick area. For example, a company might drop a full pallet of cases for piece picking on the floor or in a pallet position, rather than try to pick eaches for a suddenly high demand SKU out of carton flow rack, due to the replenishment requirements.
This becomes a temporary, secondary location. The WMS should then direct pickers to the secondary location – replenished itself as needed – until demand is consumed.
As in the first cases, when the work is done, the dynamic slot it freed to be used dynamically by another SKU, and any remaining inventory will be re-stored in reserve.
Dynamic slotting is an advanced WMS capability – and requires some expertise to get it right.
A WMS that gives you flexible dynamic slotting capabilities can reduce picking and replenishment costs substantially – not everyone needs it, but many companies that could benefit from dynamic slotting do not do so because their system won’t support it.
