New strategies for fulfilling smaller orders

When order sizes and cycle times shrink, it's time to deploy new picking and shipping strategies.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 11/5/2007

When you travel for business, you never know who you’re going to run into. This summer, for instance, I struck up a conversation with the guy standing in front of me at Chicago’s Midway Airport while we waited to board a plane to Kansas City. It turned out that—like me—Sam Flanders, president of Warehouse Management Consultants, was from New Hampshire and in the materials handling business. Weirder still, although we’d never met in person, I’d once interviewed him over the telephone for a story on lift trucks and automation. 

Since we were both on the road to visit distribution centers, I asked Flanders what’s the biggest change he’s seeing in the projects he consults on today.

“My focus as a consultant is small order picking environments,” he said. “And what I see most often is that each year the size of orders gets smaller than they were the year before.”

For example, Flanders said he’d been working with a particular client for ten years. “When we designed their first picking processes, 20 lines was a typical order,” Flanders said. “This year, they’re down to eight lines per order, and they’re about to do Internet incentives that will allow people to order one or two lines.”

The problem with small orders

The problem? Their operations weren’t designed for one and two line orders. In fact, says Flanders, most processes put in place eight or 10 years ago weren’t designed to handle smaller orders. Trying to pick small orders in that environment creates traffic jams.

“When orders get smaller, the density of the picks decreases, the weight of the order decreases and the amount of traffic in the facility increases,” said Flanders. “To handle that traffic, you have to implement new processes.”

A solution for small orders

What works? Flanders said he’s seeing a trend toward simple, flexible technologies replacing more expensive automated solutions. “Too often, someone looks at a big box retailer and thinks he needs the same kinds of automated storage and conveying solutions that the big guys have,” Flanders said. “But a simpler solution that may seem ‘old school,’ may be more suitable and flexible for that facility.”

One solution that Flanders likes: Voice-directed picking to mobile carts. “Voice allows you to pick accurately from a location and it allows new workers to get up to speed in as little time as a shift, where hand-held scanners are harder to work with,” Flanders said. “A cart-based pick strategy lets you pick 10 to 20 orders on a cart, and you’re mobile without the expense of a conveyor.”