Slotting: Complicated, but worth the effort
There are many factors to consider when reengineering your slotting activities.
Jim Apple, Founding Partner, The Progress Group, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/1/2002
Everyone seems to be preaching about the need to improve slotting in the warehouse these days, myself included.
The more I study companies' specific situations, the more it becomes clear that improving slotting practices is a complicated process. One reason it's so complicated is that there are several different reasons for improving those practices. Most commonly, we think of slotting as the process we use to optimize picking. But we may also use slotting and pick-face sizing to optimize space utilization or, increasingly, to minimize the time and effort required for receiving and storing incoming products.
Because we have several reasons for improving our slotting practices, we also have to consider a number of factors when choosing the right slotting method. Like any journey, we must know where we are headed before we start down the path.
Here are some important questions to ask when you're looking for ways to improve:
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How big is the opportunity to save on picking labor?
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Do just a few products account for most of the visits to the pick face, or does daily activity spread across most of the product line? The steeper the distribution of activity for stock-keeping units (SKUs) on a Pareto chart, the more value we can get from slotting improvements.
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Does the number of lines per order require traveling most of the pick path anyway? If so, the value of slotting according to activity levels is diminished.
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If the cube of an order is small enough, can we pick several orders at a time and thus increase the number of lines per pick tour? To do so, however, we will need a master pick list for each batch that specifies picks in storage-location sequence.
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Is the warehouse space so constrained that we need to use random location assignments to squeeze every cubic foot out of the available storage/pick face?
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If we have plenty of space available, can we assign to each product a dedicated, primary picking location that is large enough to accept new receipts? That would minimize the need for reserve storage and replenishment areas.
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Are the receiving quantities getting smaller, such that the efficiency of put-away tasks is almost as important as the efficiency of orderpicking? The time-honored practice of slotting by vendor in part-number sequence would make this much easier.
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How much does our product line change? Do 80 percent of the products carry over from year to year? Or do 80 percent of them have to be removed and replaced?
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Can we make special provisions for seasonal and promotional products whose activity will be concentrated in a short period?
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What level of sophistication will our warehouse management system support?
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How much effort will be required to maintain the new slotting plan?
Slotting is an important and necessary function. Although there's a lot more to improving slotting than simply shortening the pick path, it's worth making the effort. Not only will your picking process improve, but there also are other critical processes in the warehouse that both affect and benefit from good slotting practices. A good solution will balance them all.
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