Glossary
Picking
Order picking
Picking is the act of taking items from stock to make up an order, a kit or a production batch. It is the most labour-intensive operation in a store, and the most expensive one to get wrong.
The main families of picking
The first distinction is the direction of travel. In "person-to-goods" picking, by far the most common, the operator walks to the location. In "goods-to-person" picking, the stock comes to them, by conveyor, shuttle or mobile robot. The second is grouping. Picking order by order is the simplest and the slowest. Batch picking handles several orders in one trip then splits them. Zone picking divides the store and passes the order from zone to zone. None of these is better in the absolute: it depends on lines per order, number of items and how regular demand is.
The real cost is travel
Taking a part takes a few seconds. Walking to it takes far longer. The orders of magnitude commonly cited in logistics literature put travel at around half of picking time — and whatever exact figure you accept, the point holds: in manual picking, what you mostly pay for is walking. Two less visible costs sit on top. Search time, when the location is poorly marked or labelling is ambiguous. And error, which is paid for much later, in customer returns, stopped lines or false inventory. Hence a practical consequence: improving picking rarely means making people walk faster. It means making them walk less.
Reduce picking rather than speed it up
Three levers come before any automation. ABC classification decides the layout: the most-picked items go closest, the dormant ones go to the back. It is the cheapest and most immediate action. Gravity replenishment removes part of the journey: a flow rack loaded on one side and picked from the other brings the part within reach, and enforces FIFO along the way. Finally, kitting moves the problem upstream. Rather than have a production operator hunt for twenty items, you present them with the complete kit for the works order. Picking is done once, in a prepared area, by someone whose job it is — instead of being redone at every workstation, by everyone.
Not to be confused with
- Picking is not kitting. Picking takes items for an order; kitting makes up a complete set for a workstation or an operation. Kitting in fact relies on picking.
- Picking is not packing. Packing wraps what picking has taken.
- "Order preparation" covers the whole process: picking, checking, packing, despatch. Picking is only its first step.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between picking and kitting?
- Picking takes items to fulfil an order, in the sequence and quantity requested. Kitting assembles a set of components for one specific operation — an assembly station, a works order — and delivers it ready to use. The second removes picking at the workstation by concentrating it upstream.
- How do you reduce picking errors?
- In order of effectiveness: make location and item unambiguous (visual markers, readable labels, similar references physically separated), reduce the number of items present at the workstation, and only then add a check — barcode scan, weighing, double verification. A check laid over confused storage only slows things down.
- Should you automate picking?
- Not before exhausting layout. ABC classification, flow racks and kitting cost a fraction of an automated system and can be reconfigured. Automation is justified by high, stable and durable volumes — and it freezes the organisation for a long time.
On the shop floor
On a production line the question is not "how do we pick faster" but "why is the operator still picking at all". Every item they have to fetch is one that kitting or line-side supply could have brought to them. That reasoning is what shapes the design of our trolleys and workstation carts.