Order picking is more and more becoming a performance driven activity. And in order picking performance comes down to two things: speed and accuracy. Am I able to complete the orders within the agreed time frame and can I do it without errors? Errors mean complaints from the recipient and return shipments. Errors mean a burden on your organisation: complaints need to be handled, require time consuming communication, credit notes need to be issued. Errors cost time, money and goodwill.

Error free order picking
Weighing on order picking trucks helps preventing picking errors: if you know your article weights, you can check per order line, via the weight, whether the right amount of the right article has been picked. Thus WMS and mobile scale check the picked order line for errors on-line, within one or two seconds, without involving the order picker. If an error is signalled, the order picker can react immediately and correct the error where the cost is lowest: at the picking slot. Client studies have shown that weighing on order picking trucks can reduce the error level to tenths of a percent.

Faster order picking
Weighing directly on the order picking truck has additional advantages, on top of reducing the error level. If the integrated scale is used in its counting mode, the order picker can read on the display how many articles in the order line he has picked. He no longer needs to count by himself. This will raise his handling speed and reduce the opportunity for counting errors. If the WMS also records the data it checks, then this will generate valuable management information, about performance per order picker, variations in article weights, or cost price per picked order line.

Casestudy Lugato (pdf).

Casestudy  Pako (pdf).

Casestudy  Scheren (pdf).

Casestudy  Tibbett&Britten (pdf).