It should be remembered that the picking area is a small stock of articles (usually in cardboard) which is positioned for pickers who have to group together all the articles ordered by various customers.
However, the picking must not be emptied by a single order, otherwise there is a risk of sterile and costly replenishment movements.
But how can the quantity of a reference in picking be limited and/or pumping effects be avoided, while ensuring good availability of the goods for the preparation act and fulfilling the sales orders?
The act of computerised replenishment consists of anticipating and automatically proposing stock movements to avoid product shortages in picking.
If the business requires a picking area to be extended for various reasons (increase in the number of references and packaging, development of e-commerce, seasonal effect, etc.), then this will automatically lead to a lengthening of the preparation routes. In this case, the automation of picking replenishment will make sense!
The aim of replenishing a picking system will therefore be to provide a maximum number of references in a minimum amount of space, efficiently and without disruption.
Naturally, to achieve good results, the entire depth of the range should not be stored in the picking area, but only enough to last a few days.
The automation of the replenishment of this picking area will have an impact:
The picking area then becomes the pivotal area of the warehouse, its alpha and omega!
This mechanism aggregating numerous algorithms in the functionalities of EGO, our WMS logistics software, allows the warehouse worker to propose a product that is in stock to put it in the best destination address in the picking zone.
To do this, a number of interlocking criteria are used to organise the automatic replenishment of articles:
… this in relation to the size of the cells (small or large) of the slots that can contain the article in its chosen packaging.