eCommerce Pick Aisle Slotting
This is Chapter 5 of 13 in our eBook on eCommerce Fulfillment for 3PL Warehouses. See the link below to download the full ebook.
eCommerce fulfillment has shifted demand from Retail storefronts to warehouses which indirectly has put a strain on available warehousing space. With the increased demand for Warehouse space, this has increased the cost of adding more warehouse space. In order to keep storage costs affordable and delay the need to expand warehouse space, warehouses may choose to optimize their warehouse configuration. This is important to avoid having to seek out additional space in a low-supply, high demand, high-price market.
Regardless of the picking method, if a warehouse is fulfilling less than a full carton or Pallet quantities, then the warehouse will likely opt to utilize a pick aisle configuration. Most eCommerce fulfillment operations would benefit from maintaining a pick aisle for some or all of the products being fulfilled. Pick aisles provide benefits across many of the eCommerce principles, such as batching picks together, and combining steps with effective pick aisle slotting. Pick Aisles allow a warehouse to achieve High SKU Density in a smaller area, thus allowing for more efficient storage configurations and more efficient picking methods, from a “total distance traveled” standpoint.
Implementing a pick aisle may not always be optimal for your picking operations, and may not always provide an increased efficiencies, such as operations that have extremely high SKU counts, with very high order variability and very little overstock. The first exercise is to determine if a warehouse should have a pick aisle, by analyzing order history/product demand, and the second exercise is to architect the appropriate slotting (positioning of the product) within that pick aisle. By performing an analysis of the top products by average daily/weekly demand, it is possible to determine the fastest moving items that should be allotted prime accessible pick locations. Slotting a pick aisle is the exercise of determining the proper position for each specific product based on various parameters to optimize picking efficiency. However, slotting is not just dedicated to Pick Aisles, but Bulk Storage too.
Slotting bulk storage is the exercise of determining the proper position for each specific product based on various parameters to optimize storage capacity. Pick aisles should have a goal of positioning the fastest moving items to the most accessible pick locations. Complementary items that are commonly ordered together may also be preferred to be located near each other, such as chargers and case accessories for a popular phone or tablet. Slotting effectively allows for the most optimal picking process by minimizing the total distance traveled for all pickers to fulfill all orders for a given order batch.
the fastest moving items to the most accessible pick locations. Complementary items that are commonly ordered together may also be preferred to be located near each other, such as chargers and case accessories for a popular phone or tablet. Slotting effectively allows for the most optimal picking process by minimizing the total distance traveled for all pickers to fulfill all orders for a given order batch.
Products come in all shapes and sizes. Depending on the size of the product, the space to store it can vary. Dedicated Pick Bins are typically quite small and are only intended to hold enough product to satisfy average daily or weekly demand, depending on how often you desire to replenish. Some products have a higher SKU velocity / avg. daily demand, so they either need additional space for more stock or more frequent replenishment.
The smaller the footprint of the pick bins, the higher the SKU Density of the aisle, which leads to more SKUs that can fit in the same amount of space. A warehouse storing suitcases will require larger pick bins, therefore fewer different SKUs in the pick aisle. This is a low SKU Density configuration. Alternatively, a warehouse storing sunglasses can store a much larger variety of different SKUs in the same amount of space. This is considered a high SKU Density
configuration.
Slotting a pick aisle should take the SKU Velocity (Avg. Daily Demand), Size of the product, and the total number of SKUs into account to plan the proper configuration of the pick aisle. It’s also important to re-evaluate SKU velocity weekly, monthly or quarterly as seasonality of products may change slotting requirements.
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