Before installing a new materials handling system, a company develops a game plan—a planograph—for slotting products in storage and picking areas based on product demand.

Generally speaking, slow moving items go in manual picking areas, and fast moving items are stored in automated areas.

Then the system goes live, and the real world collides with the plan. "As time goes on, new products are introduced, other products are no longer sold, and the demand for what remains changes," says Drew Green, information technology director for SI Systems.

Too many companies, however, never adjust their slotting strategy.

"I met with a potential customer the other day that felt their facility was no longer efficient," says Green. "They've been in their building for 10 years and never reslotted their inventory."

The result, says Green, is that customers who don't reslot "either spend more money on labor than they need to or feel they need another automated pick area to improve throughput, when in fact all they need to do is reslot their products."

There are several approaches to reslotting: managing slotting with spreadsheets and then manually directing the reslotting; developing software in-house to manage slotting; and using the slotting optimization tools that are part of a WMS package.

In addition, SI Systems has developed an on-demand slotting tool.

Customers enter data about their products, and the tool generates a recommended slotting strategy based on the type of picking done in an area. It also gives customers the ability to select the products to be moved based on the cost savings that will be generated by reslotting.

"We have one customer that moves 100 products once a month because that gives them the benefit they need," says Green. "We have another customer that runs a new slotting plan every night. They see that if they make 20 moves a day, they can increase their efficiency enough to make it worth their while."