A new manual material picking process for high volume / non-serialized small parts orders

Minimization of the operational costs, flexibility of the labor force and efficiency of all processes are increasingly important issues for every warehouse. Out of all processes, order picking is recognized to be the most costly activity and therefore tends to get the most attention. Increased productivity, reduction of cycle time, and enhanced accuracy are major objectives considered in designing an order picking operation. In this paper, a solution to the very specific challenge of efficient picking high volume/small parts orders was presented. The purpose of the research was to develop such high volume/small orders/small parts order picking systems in which multiple customer orders could be progressively picked and assembled, pick-and-pass technique utilized, and no sortation equipment is required. With the presented solution, it is possible to reduce cost and time to process a wave of orders by eliminating a distance traveled by order picker, reducing a retrieval time per item and replenishment costs.