Order Picking in the warehouse

Executive Summary

The management of logistics is one of the powerful tools in the industry that needs to be dealt with utmost care. Many lapses here can lead to inefficiency in the whole supply chain which for many companies is a disaster. Today, value addition and efficiently management of time is the need of the day for all the businesses. Therefore, the main purpose of the operations in any industry is to deliver on time and manage the flow of goods in physical and communicative ways. A typical supply chain is a place where raw materials are procured and are shipped from different places and eventually made to reach the end user. There has been a rise in the technology and globalization which has made companies to think over different aspects and one important pointer is the order picking. The order picking has many policies such as the routing, storage and delivery policies which all need to be dealt with in order to have efficiency. This paper demonstrates a company in a wood industry and how it was able to manage its supply chain with efficiency with slight changes in few of its procedures. Order picking is an important aspect of the business whose efficiency does matter to a business who aims to stay in competition.

Order Picking in the warehouse

Introduction

The management of logistics is one of the most important activities that are managed in the companies. The main aim of any organization is to achieve efficient flow of materials over the entire supply chain which include both physical and communication ways that connect businesses till the final outcome. A typical supply chain function is where the raw materials are procured; different factories produce the items which are then shipped to warehouses for storage. Their onwards they are shipped to retailers and customers. The operations and processes that take place in a warehouse play a very important role in the supply chain for temporary storage before they get to the end user. There are few important aspects in the supply chain like consolidation of the products so that there reduce transportation costs, have economies of scale, savings through bulk purchases and another important aspect is the value addition. This paper discusses the ways that manufacturing firms in the wooden industry have adopted to improve their warehouse processes to increase efficiency, hedge against uncertainties and recommendations for future improvements.

Discussion

There has been an increase in technology and globalization which has led the logistics competitive aspects for the companies as well. The firms that move fast will gain advantage in the market and we distinguish and new methods and concepts are being developed with the changing trends. The order picking system should be analyzed; impact of various design parameters and operational policies should be evaluated to see the order system performance. The factors that affect efficiency of order picking are the demand for products, the layout of the warehouse, the location where these items are located, picking and routing methods that are ...