Order Picking Case Study
Picking to light: fantastic!
Dutch fulfilment expert TopPak doubled its order picking productivity and slashed its error rate after installing a pick-to-light system from Pcdata.
O
n a mezzanine floor within its 15,000 sq m warehouse, TopPak has a picking area in which only 60 articles are
held. Those 60 articles, while only a small selection of the total SKUs, represent a mas- sive 75% of its total daily order lines. These products are part of its online offering, and are ordered by consumers across Europe. Specifically for this high-intensity, lim- ited range fulfilment operation, TopPak turned to Pcdata to provide a pick-to- light system of only 20m in length. Since
90%
reduction in picking errors aſter TopPak switched to pick-to-light
24 July 2012 Storage Handling Distribution
commissioning in December 2010, productivity has doubled, while the num- ber of errors has reduced by 90%.
HOW IT WORKS
At TopPak, order picking is a team activity, and each of the five operatives engaged work dynamically across the seven zones. The process is sequential: the first opera- tor launches orders and ensures a steady supply of packing boxes is kept on the gravity roller belt that runs adjacent to the pick locations. The second operator takes an empty box and rolls it in front of the picking locations within their zone. Each of the required products lights up by the means of an LED pick display, and the quantity of product required is shown beside the push-button light. The operative picks the required products, places them into the pack- ing box and turns out the light of each prod-
www.shdlogistics.com
uct to confirm the pick action as complete. Once all lights have been turned out, the operator passes the box to the operative in the next zone, who takes the box and follows the same process before pass- ing on to the next operative and so on. This sequential ‘relay’ process keeps picking distances for each operative to an absolute minimum, meaning hours are spent picking, not walking. The SKUs picked in this process can be ordered by consumers in nine Euro- pean countries over the internet. All orders are assembled in Houten, Netherlands. Now part of Post-NL, TopPak processes an average of 700 orders per day with peaks hitting as high as 2,500.
OPTIMISED PICKING EFFORT
Prior to December 2010, the order as- sembly process was completed with the
>>>>
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52