Are warehouse picking errors costing your business money?

E-commerce and fast manufacturing techniques have dramatically increased the pressure on logistics and warehousing operations.

According to recent surveys – forty percent of consumers expect to have their product delivered next day if they place an order before noon. To achieve this, manufacturers are applying just-in-time production methods and demanding tight delivery schedules from their suppliers.

This increase not only in volume, but in service level expectation, leaves warehouses and logistics with the task of implementing an ever-growing demand within challenging SLAs whilst achieving minimum levels of error.

It’s not an easy task. Thirty five percent of fulfillment operations suffer from ongoing picking error rates of one percent or more[1]. This means that the warehouse worker picks and dispatches the wrong product at least one out of one hundred times. This might not sound like a lot, but if you consider that there are a few thousand products distributed from one warehouse location each day[2], this is a number that can’t easily be ignored.

The true cost of mistakes

To put things into perspective, to pick and deliver an order costs between £3 and £10, but it can cost double or treble that amount for a product to be returned into the supply chain[3]. That’s before you even think about the cost to your business from low customer satisfaction and the environmental impact[4].

It’s clear that logistics and warehousing operations need to increase their productivity and efficiency — and modernising their infrastructure is one way to achieving this.

One example of a company who addressed this, is car manufacturer Groupe Renault – who decided to upgrade their spare parts distribution centre in Belgium with a new solution. In their facility they have more than 33,000 items in stock and tight delivery targets. The full solution they adopted includes colour-on-demand tag printers, specialised label software, cameras and scanners.

Adding icons, colour coding and barcodes to the delivery notes, made it much easier for the operators — reducing human error and mistakes. On top, the added benefit is that the whole process was streamlined, reducing the total time required – which is an overall improvement in productivity and costs saving.

Colour descriptions and images make product selection easy

The clothing and accessories industry is another great example where improvements can be made through labelling. Products such as clothes, shoes and bags vary in size, colour, type and even branding. When they are manufactured and packaged in boxes, a label with a description is applied. For example: Leather bag, small size, type ABC, colour black.

Imagine these two scenarios: In the first, the label description is in black and white and the operator needs to read the full description to double check the item in the box containing the product. In the second, an actual colour picture of the product is displayed. Which one is easier to identify? Which one is less likely to have the wrong item picked? 

When it comes to labelling solutions, the benefits are clear: reduce pick rate errors, increase productivity, save money and keep your customers happy.

For more information, please visit: https://www.epson.co.uk/verticals/business-solutions-for-professional-graphics/colorworks/logistics-labelling.

[1] https://emeraldtc.com/2016/03/07/the-real-cost-of-picking-errors-in-the-warehouse/   

[2] https://www.dpd.co.uk/pdf/dpd_sales_guide_2018_web.pdf

[3] http://www.qts-ltd.co.uk/2018/11/warehouse-picking-errors-how-to-solve-them/.

[4] http://www.greenlogistics.org/SiteResources/343c5312-af8f-4cc0-a271-4191cb2ccdff_Edwards-McKinnon-ShoppingTripOrHomeDelivery-FocusLogisticsJuly2009.pdf.