Handheld Based Picking
Not planned
Sounds like this one has been discussed internally already, but I figured it was worth a mention here anyway. The concept is fairly obvious, but the idea is to supplant the current process of generating a Wave (or Pick-to-Order) driven from the handheld. The primary advantages that I see are:
- Elimination of the bulk move of inventory to the transient shipping container. This step is necessary with the current workflow, but it's the one chink in the armor for RetailOps when it comes to inventory moves because inventory locations are being changed, even though the inventory has not physically moved. With handheld based picking the move can be done logically by the user when they actually scan the lot from the current container to the wave picking cart. This is a huge benefit.
- Real time updates. Because the pick path is digital, if items are moved (say from an initial receipt location to an active stock location) after the wave has been generated but before it has been picked, it doesn't matter because the details for the wave will be updated.
- The biggest benefit, at least for us, is the ability to better handle bulk items. We routinely have orders with 100, 200 or even 300 items. Right now it's impossible to pick those orders efficiently with the standard picking method, but handheld based picking would make this much more functional for us.
Curious to hear other merchant's feedback on this, and if there is more interest in this option.
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Feature Sponsorship Agreements are the primary vehicle to get new features added to the platform. Because they are so closed lipped about the roadmap, and what is planned for the next release, this has been the most successful method to get something added.
As far as this specific feature is concerned, the functionality of RFCount (a vendor for NetSuite) is a really good starting point. I have a draft FSA request that I can share as a starting point, and then maybe everyone can toss out their ideas and what they would like to see added or improved?
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Thank you, Ezra, and Jason for the explanation. I will reach out to my CEO and see if she would be interested in co-sponsoring this project after I review the draft.
Here is a little information about our company:
Fovitec is an e-commerce / light manufacturing business model that sell photography lighting equipment. We sell components, pre-made kits, and in-house bundle. We do a lot of business with vendor central and send a lot of our inventory to FBA.
Right now, we are struggling with implementing RO in our warehouse effectively because before RO, we didn’t have a real system to track the day to day activity in the warehouse.
Our fear right now is that warehouse employee could ignore the location the on the pick list and pull it from another location instead of that is specific on the paper. We have bought 4 scanners, but have not be able to implement them because we keep receiving errors on our UPC Code. Will this feature that you are proposing will address this issue?
Can we review the draft before committing to co-sponsoring this project?
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Jennifer, sounds like there may be some good crossover between our two companies and some of the FSAs that we have outstanding when it comes to light manufacturing/assembly.
If you have fully moved to chaotic inventory in your warehouse, there isn't a high likelihood that your pickers will "just find the product somewhere in the warehouse and grab it". To do that with fully chaotic inventory would be WAY more work than just following the pick labels for the wave or the pack slip for pick-to-order shipments, especially because they need to find a specific LOT for that SKU.
Are you using pick-to-order or wave shipments (or both)? In any case, you won't be scanning the UPC label, but rather the LOT label on each item. That's because you can multiple different lots of a single UPC, so the LOT # is actually the most discrete identifier for the product.
WMS in RetailOps is actually quite advanced and works really well, there are just some improvement that could be made to the ship audit process and some efficiency gains to be had with handheld based picking, but the current processes still work quite well.
Absolutely you can review the FSA to make sure the scope addresses your concerns before committing to sponsor. I'll work on cleaning up that document and then I'll share it with every one.
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