Goods-to-person technologies evolve and expand

摘要

Just when warehousing and distribution operations were getting their arms around the concept of lean, the e-commerce wave swept many of those lean tenets aside. Companies now strive to add inventory and product lines, where personalization options, for example, can instantly turn one stock-keeping unit (SKU) into 10. The transition to each picking from primarily handling case and pallet volumes has further compounded the labor costs associated with pickers moving to fixed product locations. Goods-to-person (G2P) solutions, once ideal only for fairly specific applications, have evolved and expanded to offer a greater variety for those looking to boost service levels while reducing labor costs. "E-commerce has increased the amount of item picking in the distribution environment immensely, which creates productivity and space issues and requires a completely different process," says Markus Schmidt, president of Swiss-log WDS Americas. "As item pick volume and SKU count keep going up, it almost becomes unmanageable if you don't automate some of it." The unpredictability of e-commerce can strain even nimble operations, and G2P has emerged as way to add flexibility, especially in the face of dramatic seasonal peaks. Schmidt says the last 10 years have seen the introduction of G2P technologies offering more choices of inventory engines. Previously, the options were limited to solutions like carousels or mini-load systems feeding pick stations.