Achieving a perfect order fulfillment rate requires optimizing essential processes such as picking and packing. Optimizing the pick and pack process of your business will significantly improve order rates.
We will cover the most important details about picking and packing. We state what picking and packing means, identify associated challenges, and highlight measures for overcoming the challenges associated with picking and packing.
What Does Picking and Packing Mean?
Picking and packing is a component of the order fulfillment process. After an order is received, the items are identified from the inventory and picked efficiently. They are then packed securely and sent to the buyer. These procedures make up the picking and packing process.
For ordered items to get to the buyer in the safest and most secure form, picking and packing must be efficiently carried out.
Challenges of the Picking and Packing Process
According to experts, picking and packing make up about 45% of the order fulfillment process. Significant running costs are dedicated to picking and packing. When these processes are not optimized, significant losses can be incurred.
Below are some of the challenges of picking and packing.
Inventory Inaccuracies
Inaccurate inventory details contribute to packing and picking issues significantly. When inventory records do not match real-time data, lead times are increased and scheduling details are inaccurate.
If orders are made against inaccurate order details, for example, confusion will arise, and the order fulfillment process will be stalled.
Turn-around Time Delays
The time that picking, consolidating, and packing ordered items is the turn-around time for the picking and packing process.
Turn-around time delays result from multiple factors. These factors include warehouse disorganization, picking method inefficiency, and product placement inaccuracy.
If issues occur with any of the factors that influence the turn-around time, picking and packing is delayed. The ordered items take longer to get to the buyer, and customer satisfaction is reduced.
Product Information Unavailability
When product details are missing, the order fulfillment rate will be affected negatively because of the extra time spent in finding the required details.
Some of the essential product details that could be missing include:
- Product weight and dimensions
- Product SKU details
- Details of items ordered together frequently
If the details of items ordered together frequently are not available, for example, time could be wasted in picking items that could be picked together separately.
Optimizing Warehouse Pick and Pack Processes
Layout Optimization
Optimizing the warehouse layout simply means eliminating lags and loopholes and improving the turn-around time.
For example, items frequently ordered can be placed in an easily accessible part of the warehouse to optimize picking and packing.
Inventory Mobile Technology Application
Issues associated with warehouse inventory inaccuracies can be avoided by applying mobile technologies. The mobile technologies include barcodes and RFID scanners.
Systems and methods for syncing the technologies can also be applied to achieve efficient inventory management.
Business intelligence technologies can be applied to improve the quality of insights received from collected data. With the technologies, clear insights are received from raw data.
Optimizing a warehouse pick and pack process will improve order fulfillment rate and cause direct benefits such as efficient running costs and improved customer satisfaction.
