It’s tough being a logistics leader at times. There is so much technology out there and you
want your team to be as efficient as possible.
You know that technology can be a modest investment or a tremendous investment. Don’t forget that when
you ask for money to buy new equipment, somebody is tracking the results of the
investment. Often the decisions to address picking
efficiencies are cultural, technical, and financial in nature.
Culturally, we need to understand the nature of our
associates. If you have a low tech,
paper driven operation, consideration must be given to the skill sets
present. A leap to a high tech picking
system without the pre-training and hiring of capable people will doom the
project to fail. Additionally, the team
responsible for picking should be a part of the initial discussions on
transitioning from a low tech to a higher tech picking process. If the pickers have confidence in how it is
supposed to work, it will have a better chance of successful
implementation. Sometimes, we have a
tenured group of associates who have all the tribal knowledge and tricks to
make the most out of what equipment they have.
However, can we count on having a tenured group forever? Does it make sense to have a repeatable
process that is easily learned for new hires?
Technically, order and SKU data means everything. Volume history, dimensional analysis, peak
and seasonal changes, and order makeup and growth projections are needed to
determine how products should be slotted and picked. Since travelling is often the enemy of
efficiency, does goods to you technology make sense? Do you ship high volume low SKU count or do
you ship high volume, high SKU count? Are
your SKUs densely slotted; are they awkward to pick and hold? Are your SKUs high dollar or easily broken or
are they easily stolen or a drug that must be controlled by lot? There are many things to consider that are
crucial to the success of the picking system application.
Financially, picking systems must pay for themselves in a
reasonable amount of time. I recognize
what is reasonable to me may not be reasonable to you. As such, there needs to be a mutually agreed
upon set of financial parameters, based on measurable results such as labor
savings, error reduction, footprint reductions, customer service improvements,
throughput increases. Companies are
often unique in terms of their acceptable measure of payback. Additionally, there are guides that detail
expected picking gains using a specific technology. However, we can’t treat all companies the
same and must temper our projected gains and not overstate them.
Picking systems are often the lifeblood of our
operation. Let’s make sure we consider
the cultural, technical and financial implications before investing.
For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg
