Batching Orders Can Cut Down on Travel

Many factors can arise to create excess travel time

By Sam Flanders

As your operation grows, the type of order selection vehicles that will work best for you may change. Growth often means increasing numbers of SKUs, and larger on-hand quantities. It is not uncommon for shelving storage requirements to grow to cases on pallet rack shelving, and then to full pallet loads of a single SKU. In a business where items are constantly added and changing, you may find that SKUs will proliferate. All of these factors can combine to create extra travel that can place a growing burden on your order picking staff. Fortunately, there are some powered vehicle options that can help.

For operations that have a steady flow and backlog of orders, it is easy to sort orders into common groupings, and then pick a group of orders together. Orders that are picked together on a single picking run are often referred to as a "batch," and picking a batch of orders almost always cuts down on the total traveling distance needed to fill the orders. Manually pushed carts are the lowest cost vehicles used for order batching, but you can also batch orders and combine them with a powered vehicle. When "Batching" you can pick to order, or you can pick by item, and sort things out on the back end. Tuggers can help with either batch picking strategy.

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