Picking

Orders to pick

Oldest first. Picking happens on the handheld — this is the desk view of it.

Waves

A wave is several orders picked in one walk, into a cart of numbered totes. Measured on this database before it was built: on the busiest day, 1,033 orders touched 534 shelves in 1,194 visits — 2.24 visits per shelf, so more than half the walking was a return to a shelf somebody had already stood in front of.

Saved is that arithmetic per wave: lines minus shelves, the number of return trips picking these orders one at a time would have cost. Zero is a real answer — a wave of orders sharing no shelves saves nothing, and a board that could not say so would be advertising.

Smart waving

At each time below the system sorts everything waiting into the three kinds, sizes the carts as set here, sends each line to a shelf that will still have the product when the picker arrives (a second cart wanting what the first empties is sent to the next shelf that has it), makes the waves and leaves them on the board for a lead to hand out. An order nothing pickable can cover is left waiting and named below, not waved and found short at the shelf. Every run says what is running low.

Build a wave

Three kinds (Robinson, 7 September). Top selling: one product, many one-item orders, one tote or pallet, sorted at the bench by scanning. Singles: one-item orders for different products, one tote, sorted at the bench. Multi: a customer who wants several things — one tote per order, sorted at the shelf. The picker scans the tote before the first shelf, and it is that wave's until the packer has emptied it.

Suggest sorts everything waiting into the three kinds: a product with at least one-item orders waiting is top-selling; what is left with one line is singles, by aisle; the rest is multi, the orders sharing the most shelves on one cart. Every row is a cart you can make with one click, or untick from.

Or by hand: tick the orders that go on one cart and say which kind. Tote numbers are handed out in the order you tick them, left to right, so the numbers on the cart are the numbers on the list. An order already in an open wave is not offered: two pickers sent for one order is a wasted walk and a race for the same stock.

The walk

One stop per shelf, in walking order. The shelf is a suggestion — the first pickable one holding the product. Take it from wherever it actually is; the scan records the truth. Shelves nobody has put on the floor plan have no place in the walk and are listed at the end rather than dropped.

Lines that cannot be picked

The order asks for more than the building holds. A finding, not a refusal — refusing the order does not conjure stock. Pick what there is and tell the merchant.

Part orders waiting on a decision

Picked something, still short, and holding stock nobody else can be promised. Send it short, or hold it until the rest arrives — and the customer is told either way. An approval is for a quantity: if the shortfall grows, the order comes back here.

The bench

Scan the tote, then every item in it. A USB barcode scanner types into the box like a keyboard; until one arrives, type the label (OSU1-…) or use PACK on the handheld, which is the same count. Each item scanned is expected (counted into the first order in the tote that wants it), one too many, or wrong. An order leaves when every line agrees; a line the tote came up short on is put back to the shelf in the ledger and the order becomes a part order. The tote is free the moment its last order has gone.

At the bench: sort to

Every sent parcel in a live pile, by tote, and whose bike it goes on. Sort by this list; the rider presses Collected on the phone as each one goes on the bike. A sent parcel that is not here has no pile yet — dispatch builds piles on Loadout.

Picked, waiting to go

Fetched and staged. Stock leaves when the rider takes it — a picked order on the dock is still stock.

Packing happens here, at the desk, not on the handheld (Robinson, 6 September). Pack lists what was picked against what was ordered; tick each line as it goes in the box, and Sent puts it on the bench. Since db/189 the stock moves when the rider collects it, not at Sent — the list below this one is what is packed and still here.

Packed, waiting for a rider

Sent from the bench and still in the building. These units are on hand on every stock report until the rider collects them; a parcel here for more than a shift is a parcel to ask about.

Came back — decide

A failed delivery's goods were returned to a shelf. They are the merchant's stock again, but the order is not re-picked until somebody says so: Restock closes the order and leaves the goods free; Send again schedules a fresh drop and the order is picked like any other.

Stock promised to no order

An account holds goods allocated to a consignment that no longer wants them. Nobody can account for it and nothing else reports it.