Picking systems: Try before you buy

Many live storage systems are installed without achieving the pick rates envisaged due to simple design issues that could easily be picked out if a customer had access to a test facility before installation, according to Ed Hutchison of BITO Storage Systems.A test facility is essential, he says, in achieving optimum performance

Nobody wants to find themself in a situation where having installed hundreds of lanes of pallet or carton live storage in their warehouse, they find out that their pallet of choice won't run smoothly down the lane.What happens if half the pickers cannot comfortably reach the cartons on the highest level of the carton live storage system? These are not inconsequential hiccups; extrapolated across an entire system over a busy picking day, they can incur a serious reduction in pick rates.

Yet these kinds of issues can be ironed out easily at the design stage before installation takes place. All it takes is the ability for a customer to try out their live storage. This will let them refine the design to meet their precise needs and overcome any specific operational challenges they may have.

A company buying an order picking system needs to ensure it is ergonomically friendly for its pickers, no matter what their size, to allow operations to be carried out easily and efficiently. Customers of BITO, for instance, try out carton live solutions on an ergonomic test bed at BITO's Experience Centre in Nuneaton, which is designed according to the principals of the TÃœV Rhineland Ergonomic Studies, the German ergonomic certification and test mark.

A test bed will demonstrate clearly the ergonomics of a new carton live system and give customers the chance to refine the design into a system that meets their needs exactly. It's usually small things that make the difference. For example, will the pickers need a step up rail within the system or not? What incline angles will be within the carton live lanes? Will this create good visual contact for the pickers, who may come in different shapes and sizes? Ergonomics will influence pick rates and gaining the optimum pick face means designing it around the operative's natural picking curve. This will generally see fast moving SKUs (stock keeping units) located at the best possible ergonomic height for an operative to pick quickly without bending and stretching. Presenting cartons or pallets at an angle will give the picker better access and an improved view of what's inside.

Providing a rail to help the less tall pickers more easily access a higher pick location will help. These improvements may only make small time savings individually but add up significantly across the course of a shift.

When it comes to trying out pallet live systems, a test facility will determine perhaps the most vital issue when it comes to gaining full efficiency from such a system:Will the pallet roll smoothly? When a company invests up to a six-figure sum into materials handling equipment they will want to be sure that it meets their requirements and can work with the pallet fleet in their supply chain. This may have been a moot point in the days of standard pallets when quality was more consistent than it is today. Pallets today can be made of virtually anything and their characteristics are distinctly non-standard.

Mocking up a proposed live storage system, either in a test facility or in a customer's own warehouse, will give the customers the opportunity to touch and feel a real system in the metal. They can have their staff try it and make recommendations.

Take for example the experience of Dave Chamberlain, logistics manager at Spirax Sarco, British-based manufacturer of boiler and pipeline control valves for steam heating and process plants. He said: "We went to BITO's showroom to see how the carton live system works.We then set up a sample system in the old warehouse to run through the ergonomics of the carton live, which proved very successful.We paid particular attention to ergonomics because with our old silos the pickers couldn't see the stock.

Now, however, they can see products clearly and pick out of the carton quite easily." A customer can invite other suppliers of materials handling equipment to try the mock up to ensure that products, such as lift trucks, AGVs or conveyors, will integrate properly with the live system, particularly if these devices are bespoke in any way. A further benefit of a mock up is that customers can gauge the quality of the system, important as there are many cheap products entering the UK market. Often these have no audit trail making it impossible to determine the quality of raw material used in their manufacture.

The lesson then is to try out your live storage system before it's installed, make sure it's of the quality you would expect and that the design is absolutely right for your needs.