Pick it, pack it, ship it with light-directed systems
From conventional flow racks to mobile carts, pick-to-light systems are proving to be a kingpin of heightened productivity and order accuracy.
By Susan Rider -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/1999
Orderpicking is probably the most labor intensive and crucial process at a distribution center today. And by all indications, the demands on picking systems are increasing steadily.Customers now order only what they need and only when they need it. The end result is smaller, more frequently placed orders. At the same time, customers are especially demanding about the accuracy and timeliness of their orders.
That means managers must simultaneously maximize productivity, speed, and accuracy in the picking process. And many of them are turning to light-directed picking systems.
The standard image people have of these systems is a series of lights placed in front of picking positions on carton flow rack. A worker walks to an illuminated light then picks the number of items displayed on a small screen next to the light. After pushing a button at the location to confirm completion of the pick, the worker moves to the next glowing light.
Light-directed picking today goes far beyond carton flow rack. It has been adapted to pallet flow rack, bin shelving, mobile carts, carousels, and standard racks. See the artwork for how each operates.
Despite their physical differences, these systems have much in common.
They make printed pick lists obsolete, allowing workers to pick with both hands. Picking productivity can climb 50% or more.
In addition, the lights identify the exact location for picking, making it especially difficult to pick the wrong items. Accuracy rates of 99.998% are common.
A third common benefit is ease of training. Workers adapt very easily to light-directed picking systems, limiting training time to a matter of days not weeks.
Pick-to-light systems have been so successful that they are now used in reverse. Known as put-to-light, these systems are for full-case crossdocking. Pre-allocated product is received and sent to the put system where its bar code label is scanned. Lights come on at the designated rack storage locations for the various cases. The worker then puts rather than picks the case to those locations for orders.
It is also important to know that there is more to these systems than bright lights. There is the software too. Many say the better the software the higher the productivity of the system.
Software with workload screens and productivity tracking act much like order management systems. They provide a real-time status of various activity areas by shift or day. Productivity can be tracked by work zones and by individual down to the number of units and lines completed. Beyond status reports, the data can be used to make on-the-fly adjustments to meet the day's order fulfillment requirements.
Another software feature tracks the number of boxes in an order, their contents, and who picked what into each box. A companion to this is software that directs picking into boxes until each is entirely full, utilizing all of the box's cube.
Building from this base, light-directed picking seems sure to play a long-term role in the productivity and accuracy of distribution centers.
For tips on considerations to make when selecting light-directed picking systems, visit www.mmh.com.
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