Picky Picky Picky

Most distribution centers and many manufacturing facilities pick products in one form or another. Pallets, cases, parts and kits are routinely picked using a variety of methods.  Paper based, RF enabled, pick to light, pick to voice, horizontal carousels, vertical lift modules, mini-loads, unit load AS/RS and shuttle systems are frequently used to automate traditionally labor intensive tasks.  From absolutely inefficient to unbelievably efficient, you will find them all in industry catalogs, trade shows, YouTube videos and people like me touting what they can do for your operation and customer service. 

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

 

Traveling

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.  Lao Tzu

Travelling in distribution and manufacturing environments is the enemy of efficiency.  Traveling wastes time, creates workload imbalances and increases the cost of product manufacturing and distribution.  Traveling is deceptive since it sometimes appear to be necessary to get the job done. 

When we talk about traveling in the manufacturing plant or the distribution center, it usually involves manually transporting product from one value added process to another or picking items, walking along a designated pick path.  Since it’s only human to want to communicate with each other, walking past our fellow associates without sharing a how the weekend went or how your fantasy football team did is irresistible.  So what do we do about time wasted socializing?  How do we increase productivity without being the communication police?

While it is difficult to keep our team from excessively discussing the news of the day, it is easy to identify how we can reduce the opportunities for travelling. 

·         Assign pick zones or areas of responsibility so your order pickers have less reason to walk the floor

·         Employ “goods to you” systems such as carousels, mini-load systems, tote or case shuttle systems

·         Employ picking systems such as pick to voice or pick to light that tend to engage the picker, reducing the slack time between picks

·         Convey products from one value added process to another as conveyors don’t speak with each other or at least they don’t verbally

·         Use Human Machine Interface software to graphically depict your automation systems so you may identify jams, malfunctions and safety issues

·         Employ automatic scales, tapers, labeling systems and manifesting to keep personnel congestion to a minimum

Most of our associates are generally hard-working, dedicated and loyal.  We need them to successfully manufacture and distribute the products that allow us to grow and be profitable.  However, we are social beings and we need systems and an environment that reduces distractions, promoting focus on our respective tasks.  Are your associates travelling?

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg