Abstract:
Among warehouse activities, order picking is the most labor intensive activity as pickers spend majority of their times searching and traveling for items. One way to reduce these non-value added tasks is to implement FastPick Area (FPA), a dedicated storage area in which small and high-picking items are assigned and stored in limited quanities. We studied order picking activity in a small automotive-part warehouse and designed FPA using a fluid model. The analysis of the model shows that FPA can reduce picking time 3,711 hours or 1.58 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE). The sensitivity model suggests that 77-78 SKUs of total 1,031 SKUs should be assigned to FPA that consists of 2 bin-shelves or 11.32% of total storage area as the area is the most convenient locations of the exisiting layout and the most insensitive to any chances in warehousing parameter such as ratio of storage item, time to restock, and time to retrieval. To verify the design and to determin suitable slotting, we relaxed the assumption of the fluid model and considered dimensions of assigned SKUs using a Monte Carlo Simulation. The simulation represents the put-away and picking processes by simulating picked quantities and inter-arrival to each pick from the historical data. The result of simulation shows that the benefit of FPA is reduced to 1,245 hours of picking time saving or 0.53 FTE because of fluctuations of historical picking data and relatively large packaging of assigned SKUs in FPA.