What is a Pick-to-Light picking zone?
How do I plan a picking zone?
Are several employees allowed to work in one picking zone?
How flexible is the system?
...and much more.
In the article we explain the function and structure of a picking zone equipped with a Pick-to-Light system. We also show you how several pickers can work simultaneously in such a picking zone.
What is Pick-to-Light Picking zone?
A Pick-to-Light picking zone defines a certain number of storage bins that are accessed simultaneously during picking. One or more pickers work in a picking zone.
How do I plan a picking zone?
The size of the picking zone depends on many factors, which is why only a thorough analysis can give the correct answer. The most important thing is that the employees maintain a very good orientation. Access to the goods should be fast and targeted. At the same time, the quality of picking must be as high as possible.
The system must provide optimum support for the employee!
At a semi-automatic picking system with conveyor technology, Pick-to-Light and flow racks, the picking zones are approx. 6-8 m long. The conveyor technology also serves as a buffer here, whereby the correct distribution of the goods in the zone is achieved by the A/B/C analysis. It is very important that the employee has a good overview of all Pick-to-Light compartment displays and has the shortest possible walking distances.
In completely manual systems with picking trolleys, the size of the picking zone varies greatly. Sometimes the zones are very long and are even served simultaneously by several employees. You will find out how this works in a moment ...
A single picking zone can also have several hundred displays. Sometimes the picker has to stand with his back to the Pick-to-Light (B or C items). To keep an overview of the storage compartments, special displays are used for quick navigation. At a glance, the order picker can see where the active storage compartments are positioned (bottom left, top right, centre or back). This assigns a segment of the navigation display to each storage compartment. After each acknowledgement, the control system automatically updates the navigation display.
In addition to the graphical representation of the active orders, the navigation display shows the number of open withdrawals. Practice shows that by using navigation, the work for the order picker is much more relaxed and faster. This results in an overall increase in performance of about 5-7%. The low cost of the function justifies the investment.
Are several employees allowed to work in one picking zone?
Yes! The answer is clear as far as it is LUCA-Server used. With our system several employees can work in one picking zone. We have multi-coloured LEDs available on the displays. Each employee and his order is assigned a separate colour. The problem of simultaneous access to the compartments is complex, but we have solved it very well. We LUCA-Server have developed a special procedure for synchronizing the outputs and accesses to the same compartments.
This procedure enables correct coordination between the individual processes for several employees and orders. Each employee works with his own data. However, each process in the picking zone does not send the telegrams directly to Pick-to-Light, but to a synchronization module. The module is then responsible for the correct coordination of access to the common storage compartments.
Do you want to know how exactly that works? Contact us...
How flexible is a picking zone?
The function is not quite simple, but it is possible. Not only Pick-to-Light itself is affected by the challenge, but also the warehouse management system (WMS). Whether the dynamic division of the picking zones is really practicable, we still cannot answer with a clear "Yes". We always examine these requirements very thoroughly and precisely before such systems are built. We have already developed many variants of the solution, but almost every solution was very customer-specific. We will soon present some examples of this in our other blog articles.
Conclusion
The division of a Pick-to-Light system into several picking zones is absolutely necessary. This allows several pickers to process different orders at the same time. The division and size must always be determined individually. In the LUCA system, several employees can even pick simultaneously and efficiently.
Back to Pick-to-Light Main article : "Pick-to-Light - the ultimate guide"