10 October 2021 Discover the most common errors in the picking process and valuable tips to make the most of your warehouse resources, ensuring speed and accuracy in order preparation. Order preparation, also known as picking, is one of the most crucial steps in logistics operations, as it directly deals with customer service and represents over 60% of the total warehouse cost. Through the picking process, order items are sorted, checked, packed, and shipped. Failure in this activity can lead not only to delivery delays but also to the dispatch of incorrect items, which undermines customer trust. Therefore, it’s not an exaggeration to say that picking issues cost time and money. If you are looking to implement a good picking process in your warehouse, you must first know (and recognize in your operation) the most common flaws. Then, it’s time to find the most suitable solutions for your case. In this text, we will present the main problems, their impacts on operations, and how a WMS system can help solve them simply and practically. Meet them below: Problem 1: The employee cannot find the product in the warehouse If an item is outside of its picking location in the warehouse, it means the operator performing the picking of goods will need to spend more time searching for it. This issue causes delays in fulfilling that order and subsequent orders, leading to significant inefficiencies in operation, with time losses and reduced productivity. How to solve it: When deploying a WMS system in your warehouse, every incoming item is checked and directed to a location. With the WMS, the operator is required to check and place the product, thus ensuring the correct execution of the process and an updated record of the product’s location in the warehouse. If the operator places the product in a different position than suggested by the system or the record of that item, they will automatically receive a notification. Moreover, with the WMS, all stock rotation occurs based on picking, meaning the system ensures that picking areas are always stocked. This means that when an employee picks an item, that product will be exactly where it should be: in the best position to facilitate work and reduce movements. Problem 2: Employees make errors in picking, meaning when they pick products, they select incorrect items or quantities different from those indicated in the order If there are errors at the time of picking, two consequences are possible: the first is that such an error is detected at the time of shipping, where a new pick will be required, meaning time and labor will be lost; the second is that if the error is not detected, the wrong item will be shipped, which can lead to financial losses for the company and, most importantly, customer dissatisfaction expecting to receive the right product on time. A commonly used market metric to calculate the cost of these errors is to multiply the number of weekly errors by the cost of each error. By doing this calculation, you can see how much money is wasted. Additionally, it’s important to add the cost of rework. How to solve it: All movements in a warehouse must be tracked, particularly picking. With a WMS system, the activity is carried out with the support of mobile devices using barcode readers (smartphones or zebra devices with built-in barcode), preventing the picking of incorrect items or wrong quantities. Allied to picking technology, it’s also important to define packing policies, which can be total or individual like picking. Problem 3: Picking is done using a paper list, making it time-consuming and error-prone When the picking operator uses paper lists, which must be loaded to locate and select items, the process becomes long and inefficient, besides leaving a wide margin for error. Operations like this, strictly manual, leave the decision regarding the prioritization of orders and tasks to be performed in the user’s hands, and without the system, it’s not possible to guarantee that the separation was successful. How to solve it: The solution is to eliminate paper from operations using a WMS system with a mobile device. The operator will thus be guided throughout the picking process, ensuring the correct product is picked in the right quantity, and can only close it when the system notifies the end of the activity. Reducing the chances of human error and increasing the quality of your service. Problem 4: There is no priority order for customer orders If orders are not prioritized based on your operation, two problems can occur: the first is exceeding the delivery times agreed with the customer, and the second is occupying the shipping area with orders that will be shipped later, which not only means space abuse but can also lead to errors in load loading. How to solve it: To solve this problem, you need to find a suitable method to classify your orders and parameterize the warehouse management system according to this model, which can be based on the courier’s schedule, the customer’s urgency, or even delivery routes. From there, the system determines which orders need to be sorted, massively or individually, and provides the manager with information on the progress of picking through indicators. Problem 5: Excessive work to meet low productivity or demand fluctuations The excessive amount of labor in the warehouse, especially in picking, can have several causes: Inadequate layout: If your warehouse does not have a strategic layout, seeking the best use of space and efficient movements, there will be greater effort in separating goods, which will consequently require more staff to fulfill orders. Inappropriate picking mode: If your operation is adopting a picking model no longer suitable for your business, it is likely that it will be more difficult to separate products, people will travel greater distances, and therefore, more employees will be needed to fulfill all orders. Lack of a warehouse management system: Without software managing processes and activities in the warehouse, people’s work loses efficiency, as many decisions are under their responsibility and experience, which may not be assertive. An example directly related to picking is that without the software, employees cannot define the best position to allocate products, as well as the right time and quantity for replenishment. They may also get confused about the priority order of orders, with all these bottlenecks covered by a WMS system, which defines when and how much to replenish, as well as organizing all orders and coordinating activities. Therefore, without a WMS, low productivity ends up requiring excessive hiring of employees. Growth without automation: When the number of sales starts to grow and the company has only manual operations, the solution to manage all orders ends up hiring more labor for picking. But this means spending more money than necessary. In all the cases mentioned above, it’s important to emphasize that increasing the team is not a guarantee of good results, given the limits of its structure. Doubling the number of people working in picking areas does not necessarily mean doubling the number of separated orders, as employees compete for space and equipment. How to solve it: The most efficient way to increase picking productivity without hiring too much staff is to seek automation solutions for the warehouse, besides, of course, defining an adequate layout for your warehouse, placing high-turnover items in privileged positions, and choosing the ideal picking model for your operation. Automated systems will replace repetitive manual efforts and increase efficiency and productivity, requiring fewer people to meet the same order volume. Another advantage offered by warehouse management software is that it makes all decisions assertively, as it sees the warehouse as a whole and knows the needs and priorities of your operation, thus being able to organize and optimize all internal work. If your goal is to grow and increase sales, invest in systems that ensure efficiency combined with cost reduction. Problem 6: Product Placement When a warehouse has only one position per product, usually the picking position, in situations where this placement is full, the operator ends up choosing another empty position in the warehouse to allocate the goods. In these cases, stock organization ends up depending on employees remembering where each product is located. Now imagine if one of the operators who placed the goods is on vacation or has some issue causing them to be absent from work. Locating the product will become difficult and time-consuming, with a direct impact on replenishing picking areas. It’s worth adding that it takes a lot of time to train employees in the warehouse layout. In times of sales peaks, when it’s necessary to hire temporary workers, it may not be possible to provide such training. And relying on each one’s good memory is quite risky, leaving the operation susceptible to errors. How to solve it: Invest in a WMS system that allows addressing all areas of the warehouse. With this functionality, besides the system controlling the exact location of each product, it also suggests the best positions for the goods based on their rotation rate (ABC curve) and storage rules. In this way, you can make the most of warehouse space and improve the picking process, making goods available in strategic positions. Problem 7: It is not possible to track who performed the picking and packing If you don’t record what is done in the operation, how will you measure performance or track what is happening? William Thomson said, “what cannot be measured, cannot be improved,” and that phrase is valid for all operations occurring in a warehouse, especially for the picking process. It’s not only necessary to evaluate your team’s efficiency but also – and most importantly – to monitor the process’s progress, checking if it falls within ideal times, if it is well executed, etc. And how to do it manually? How to solve it: Invest in a WMS system that has mobile devices to record movements within the warehouse, as well as who performed them, date and time, among other important data. All these records go into dashboards and KPIs, allowing monitoring by the manager. The Visual Management solution is also essential, offering real-time visibility of warehouse movements, allowing timely error correction. When it comes to operations in a warehouse, particularly picking, you cannot make wrong decisions; it’s necessary to closely monitor the progress of processes. Count on a WMS system for this! Overcoming problems with the right tools The situations we presented in the previous seven problems can occur in any warehouse. It’s not uncommon for managers to complain about errors made by employees during picking, or even the opposite, when pickers complain about the lack of organization in the warehouse, which ends up harming picking. There are also cases of companies still using manual processes, depending on requests on paper lists and the decision-making of their employees, which makes separation inefficient and prone to errors. Finally, the lack of strategies to make the operation more efficient and economical is also a reality in many companies, which overlook important issues such as defining the best layout for the warehouse, product positioning, order priority, and even choosing the ideal picking model. However, looking at these details and seeking their solution is what distinguishes efficient separation from a time-consuming process with recurring errors. The good news is that overcoming all these bottlenecks is not as difficult a task as it seems. By investing in technology and having the right tools and strategies for your business, it’s possible to grow with quality, increasing profits and maintaining a high level of customer service. Now that you know more about how a WMS system can increase picking efficiency, are you ready to make significant strides in your company by introducing a valid WMS system? Problems in Picking: How to Avoid Mistakes? Deagor WMS per ecommerce può aiutarti!