Knowledge Base

The picking process is the most time consuming element in day-to-day warehouse operation. To fulfill shipment orders, pickers are given the task of traversing the warehouse floor to gather purchased items off the racks into a pick cart based on a pick list. Once all the items on the pick list have been picked, the picker then returns the filled pick cart to the packing station and offload them to the packers. This pick step is repeated many times a day and likely 7 days a week for many warehouses. It is a major bottleneck especially during the peak shopping season.

Many factors can affect the picking process. Perhaps the most obvious is the warehouse layout. The navigability of the floorplan such as the number of cross aisles, aisle direction, layout and density of racks can improve or impede picking. Getting them right is no trivial task and often a guesswork involving trial and error through expensive physical implementation entailing capital and labor costs such as rack purchases and assembly, and items relocation

At SolvingMaze, we help you eliminate the guesswork from layout optimization through our layout simulation software. Simply draw your warehouse layout in Excel and upload to our online software along with historical shipment orders containing line item quantity and stock location. The software simulates the picking process to help you identify optimal warehouse floor plan such as layout of storage racks, aisle widths, aisle traversal direction, product storage assignment, pick zone partitioning, and item storage assignment.

With our software, you can make intelligent decision quickly on how to optimize your warehouse layout so it streamlines the picking process and speed up order fulfillment.