5 Proven Ways to Improve Warehouse Picking Speed, Accuracy, and Efficiency
Fulfilling a customer order is a complex procedure, and it involves a lot more steps than you think. From receiving an order to delivering it to the customer’s doorstep, order picking is one of the most overwhelming processes in warehousing, which is considered labor-intensive and is more prone to mistakes. Order picking accounts for nearly 55% of warehouse operating costs. Slow or error-prone picking not only delays fulfillment but also directly affects customer satisfaction. Our 3PL WMS is designed to simplify multi-client fulfillment while improving speed and efficiency.
Several warehouses face difficulties with picking and packing mistakes. These errors will not only cause financial loss but can also impact your brand reputation and customer relationships.
Here in this blog post, you’ll find the top 5 practical steps to enhancing your warehouse picking process, accelerating operational speed, and improving customer experience:
Understanding Warehouse Pick Rates and Efficiency Benchmarks
On average, warehouse pick rates for most warehouses are 50 to 250 items per hour. However, this rate can vary depending on several aspects, such as the type of industry, the size of the warehouse, and how intricate the picking process is.
This is why it’s pivotal to understand how your operations compare to industry standards. This helps you know areas that require effort or improvements to accomplish performance goals.
Steps to Faster Order Picking Speed and Accuracy in a Warehouse
Order picking is an extensive, labor-intensive process that involves a list of essential steps. To improve warehouse picking efficiency and accuracy, we’ve explained the top 5 steps that you can follow:
- Assess Your Current Warehouse Processes: Start by assessing your current warehouse processes and evaluating your complete picking process, involving picking routes, storage patterns, order process times, order receipts, and more. This evaluation should include travel path analysis, slotting optimization, and workforce productivity checks.
Further, you can analyze what factors affect delays, it could be excessive walking distances, frequent stockouts, or maybe congested picking zones.
- Rethink Your Warehouse Layout: If you haven’t given a thought to warehouse layout yet, it is best to consider implementing an ABC analysis. It’s an effective way that prioritizes placing your high-demand products in easily accessible areas, resulting in seamless and quick order fulfillment. Modern WMS systems also provide digital twin simulations for layout optimization, which reduces picker travel distance.
Moreover, this fine layout strategy helps reduce pick times through well-planned layouts, aligns routes within warehouse zones, and essentially enhances the overall speed and accuracy of picking operations. Even the few changes to the warehouse layout can reduce continuous mistakes and travel time, speeding up the picking process.
- Selecting the Right Picking Strategy: From multiple picking strategies, finding the method that works best for your business is important. The choice of picking method can greatly depend on factors such as order volumes, inventory types, and workforce structure. Here are some of the most popular warehouse picking strategies:
Batch Picking: This strategy supports pickers to collect items for multiple orders at once. Significantly, it reduces travel time but demands intelligent sorting to ensure picking efficiency and accuracy.
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Wave Picking: In this strategy, orders are grouped and picked in scheduled waves based on order priorities such as delivery timelines or order types. This method coordinates multiple orders across zones, making it perfect for fulfilling large order volumes within a dedicated timeframe.
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Zone Picking: This method divides the warehouse into designated zones with specific pickers, ultimately reducing congestion and increasing speed by reducing the picker movements to a specific section.
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Using Technology & WMS Automation to Improve Picking Speed: Using an AI-driven warehouse management system simplifies and improves your picking process by drastically reducing picking errors.
Order fulfillment software supports different devices to speed up your picking process:
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Barcode Scanning and Mobile Scanning Devices: Barcode scanning tools can replace manual pick lists, improving your picking precision. Also, mobile scanning devices help increase the overall warehouse picking speed by automating and streamlining tedious picking processes. Industry studies highlight that automation tools like barcode scanning and mobile devices can increase picking accuracy to over 99%, making them essential for warehouses focused on speed and efficiency.
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Warehouse Management System Technology: Using WMS platforms like FulFillor can help discover the quickest picking route and offer real-time inventory insights. Additionally, it commands pickers with the use of mobile devices, reducing travel times and boosting picking efficiency and accuracy.
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Track Picking KPIs: Without measuring performance, you cannot improve. By executing and assessing key performance indicators (KPIs), you can find out where enhancements are needed. Track KPIs like pick path efficiency, order cycle time, inventory accuracy, and labor productivity to identify bottlenecks and continuously improve.
Some of the top performance criteria include:
- Pick rates
- Accuracy rates
- Order cycle times
- Distance traveled per order
- Labor utilization
- Error rates and time
These performance criteria help identify inaccuracies, reduce mistakes, and improve service levels.
How FulFillor WMS Improves Warehouse Picking Speed, Accuracy, and
Productivity
FulFillor is a powerful, scalable, and AI-powered order fulfillment solution that helps align and speed up the picking process. Our platform supports diverse picking options, including batch, auto cluster, single order picking, and other methods. Instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all approach, our team at FulFillor suggests the best order picking strategy based on your warehouse operations. Unlike outdated ERP modules, FulFillor’s AI-driven WMS ensures optimized pick paths, real-time inventory visibility, and seamless integration with ecommerce platforms.
When implemented carefully, it helps boost warehouse picking speed and accuracy, strengthening overall order fulfillment performance. By replacing paper pick lists, rethinking warehouse layout, tracking picking KPIs, and aligning inventory management, our all-in-one WMS software can drastically reduce travel time and mistakes and enhance overall picking and order speed and accuracy.
How FulFillor Stands Out From Other Tools?
- FulFillor helps increase picking speed by 50% compared to other outdated systems, which means increased picking efficiency.
- Transparent visual confirmations ensure practically impeccable accuracy rates.
- Seamless integrations with other platforms ensure real-time updates, stock visibility, and aligned workflows across warehouse operations.
- Our software efficiently adapts to multiple warehouse sizes and layouts.
Book an appointment with our team and explore how our order fulfillment software can support your warehouse picking process and increase overall picking performance and accuracy.
See how FulFillor reduces picking errors by 50% and improves warehouse efficiency.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
What do you mean by warehouse picking process? From receiving orders to delivering them to the end consumers, warehouse picking involves several steps. It’s a crucial element of order fulfillment and drastically impacts speed, accuracy, and customer satisfaction.
What are the pain points in warehouse picking? Some most common pain points in warehouse picking involve:
- Picking mistakes or wrong items picked
- Excessive picker travel time
- Poorly organized inventory layout
- Inaccurate inventory levels
- Seasonal demand fluctuations
Can picking speed be improved without automation? Yes, picking speed can be improved without automation. It can be done through reorganizing high-demand items, executing a batch picking strategy, and rethinking picking paths. However, by using an advanced fulfillment platform like FulFillor, you can achieve greater picking speed and accuracy. With automation, you can clearly view picking errors, track accuracy rates across orders, and even use KPIs to achieve faster picking speed.
What is the most efficient warehouse picking method? The most efficient warehouse picking method often depends on order volume and layout, but batch picking and zone picking are widely considered the most effective for reducing travel time and errors. When supported by a WMS like FulFillor, these methods can be automated and optimized to maximize speed and accuracy.
