Pick list

The list is the job. How it is sorted decides how far the person walks.

Sort by shelf, not by order

A list in order-line sequence sends a picker up and down the same aisle four times. The same list sorted by bin location walks the room once, in one direction.

For a store shipping thirty orders a day that is the difference between two hours and one.

Batch picking

Pick several orders in one walk, then split them at the packing bench. It is much faster and it introduces the one risk worth naming: two similar items landing in the wrong tote.

Scan at the bench, not just at the shelf, and the risk goes away.

What belongs on it

• The SKU and the location
• The quantity, in large type
• The product name, so a wrong scan is obvious to a person
• Nothing else

Where it goes wrong

Size. A picker takes a medium instead of a large because the two boxes are identical apart from one character, and nobody scans at the shelf. The customer gets the wrong size, returns it, and the return is restocked late.

The other one is picking against a list printed an hour ago. Something sold in the meantime, the shelf is empty, and what looked like a stockout is just a stale sheet of paper.