Optimization for manual or automated picking. Or both?

Does your warehouse operation have any of these characteristics?

• large pick zones with long travel distances
• pick to many customers in the same pick order
• many pick load carriers allowed in the same pick order

Then we can certainly help to optimize travel time and distances to increase the overall productivity. In recent digital twin simulations with data from a couple of our customers in discount retail and grocery we saw that we could reduce travel distances with up to 30%, and overall time spent with up to 15%.

You might argue that it is better to invest heavily in automating the warehouse processes, and many are being successful in implementing goods-to-man solutions like AutoStore for (parts of) the operation.

But the ROI for large scale automation is not always obvious. In many cases you are only able to automate for parts of the assortment, when:

• the type of goods vary in weight and volume
• you need to serve a wide range of customers with varying order sizes
• you run B2C e-com as well as B2B wholesale or store replenishment in the same facility

Or you simply want to keep the flexibility you get from a manual picking processes.

Then you need to be smart and optimize your picking operation to gain maximum efficiency. It requires flexibility to configure picking strategies but also smart optimization of pick orders. Our new POB+ algorithm for building optimal pick orders does exactly this!

Learn more about it in our white paper: