Managing Warehouse in Pandemic.
As we are browsing challenging days, there are important changes within the community and people’s daily lives. Due to quarantine and shelter-in-place orders in various states, people are shopping online rather than going into warehouse stores. People are buying groceries, household and everything else online while they’re receiving. Additionally, people also are stockpiling from Warehouse and there’s an in-depth demand increase in online retail.
Our customers increased their number of shipments 12x relative to last year, heavily with the impact of Covid-19.
No question – all this already features a dramatic impact on the general retail and provide chain. presumably, this may also end in online retail has a substantially larger bite from the general retail market size post-covid. However, this is often not certain as there’s a high level of uncertainty within the whole world about once we will return to “normal”.
While the entire world is a reception, thanks to the pandemic, supply chains can’t stop to urge supplies to the communities. Logistics as being liable for the flow of products within the availability chains is an important business – especially warehouses that are the hubs of the flow are essential too.
We have been continuously mentioning “Agility in Supply Chains” as an enormous advantage that a supply chain or its components should have. Pandemic and every one its results and conditions have proven that agility may be a crucial skill for a warehouse for the general supply chain.
These agile supply chains had the power to convert into B2C fulfilment chains that are capable of delivering an enormous number of orders to consumers.
Warehouses represent the environments that are normally hard to stay social distancing between employees.
It is important to use CDC Guidelines within the warehouses,
Gloves and masks should be used consistent with CDC Guidelines
The distance between employees shouldn’t be but 6 feet at any given moment at anywhere within the warehouse
This is where it gets tricky. the aim of this post isn’t to speak about CDC Guidelines but it’s about redesigning the warehousing processes to align with these guidelines and to secure the well-being of the workers. Process redesign is crucial especially parturient intensive processes like order fulfilment.
That’s why we come up with 3 specific fulfilment strategies to be applied in warehouses so as to align with CDC guidelines also as provide social distancing.
Very Small Warehouses with Average Shipment
Small Warehouses with High Shipment
Large Warehouses with High Shipment
Very Small Warehouses with Average Shipments
We recommend the “Pick and Pack” method in very small warehouses
A picker picks then packs an order or a batch of orders in one trip and shut the box
Of course, this strategy goes to scale back the efficiency of the pickers and packers. When the warehouse isn’t facing a drastic amount of orders, then this method goes to be the safest during an epidemic which guarantees social distancing and fewer touchpoints for workers
Picking Strategies
Small Warehouses with High Shipments
If a little warehouse faces a considerable increase in their number of orders, then the efficiency is going to be also important to stay the availability chain running and deliver supplies to the community on time.
We recommend the Batch Picking method in small warehouses
WMS will batch the orders/picking tasks automatically on the principles and algorithms that are defined within the system.
The rules should be primarily to stay pickers faraway from one another at a minimum of 6 feet.
The batches that are picked within the warehouse are going to be taken to specific packers to pack the orders.
Creating Fulfillment Teams (Cells) which will always have an equivalent people in it’ll provide boundaries within the team to attenuate the danger of transferring goods between different people.
This will provide companies to also apply traceability and quarantine measures just in case of a Covid-19 case in any of the teams (cells).
A pick and pack team will do everything at an equivalent frequency like taking breaks, eating lunch. However, different fulfilment teams will do of these things at different times.
Large Warehouses with High Shipments
We recommend the Zone Picking (Pick and Pass) method in large warehouses.
In batch picking;
The warehouse is going to be split into virtual zones next to every other. E.g. you’ll select 3 consecutive aisles as 3 zones.
The WMS will create the tasks and batches for every zone automatically.
A picker or a team of pickers are going to be liable for each zone. meaning the pickers are getting to pick orders from the precise zones supported the picking tasks created.
An order may include items from all 3 zones. during this case, the order is going to be split into 3 zones and different parts of the order are going to be picked from different zones by the workers liable for those zones.
The WMS splits the orders into zones. E.g. we’ve 100 orders to be picked from 3 different zones.
The WMS creates picking tasks automatically and it also creates employment for every zone that has the picking tasks of every zone. Then Zone 1 starts executing Job-1.
Picker-1 takes an empty cart, executes the picking tasks and picks the things into the cart. Then the picker completes Job-1 and leaves the cart to the transit spot of the zone for Picker-2 to require (if the zone is an aisle then it’ll be the frontline of the aisle).
Picker-2 picks the cart from the transit spot and starts executing Job-2 for Zone-2. Picker-2 completes Job-2 a bit like picker-1 and leaves the cart at another transit spot for Picker-3 to select the cart and do an equivalent thing. So all items of the orders are consolidated within the same cart easily and safely.
Picker-3 leaves the complete cart to the packing station for the orders to be packed.