The primary benefit of a conveyor sortation system is, of course, the labor saved by eliminating both the need to make repeated stops at the same pick location, manually transport completed picks to the shipping docks, and to individually consolidate the components of each order.
In addition, sorters provide an opportunity to scan the product as it is shipped, verifying its identity and making sure that the right product is going to the right customers. The automated scanning of barcoded products can also, in some situations, eliminate the need for scanning or data entry by the pickers, making their jobs easier and making them more efficient and more accurate. This is true for both full-case and item-picking operations. The only difference is the type of sortation and scanning equipment required.
However, if the cases picked and shipped by a company per shift are less than 10,000, automatic sorting often cannot be cost justified.
Smaller operations, however, should not abandon the possibility of reducing labor costs adding mechanization. I believe a scaled down, but still effective use of automation can serve many of these companies very well, as I have seen first hand over my career.
The approach? Consider deployment of a manual sorting system utilizing a simple re-circulating conveyor loop connected via conveyors to picking areas (as illustrated below).
Manual Mechanized Sortation System
In this approach, order pickers use batch picking techniques, which are at the heart of the labor savings delivered by traditional sortation systems. As a wave or batch of orders is released to the floor, picks per location are consolidated, meaning a picker visits that location just once, and picks cartons across orders for that wave.
As the cartons are picked, they are placed on a conveyor for delivery to the sortation loop. As a result, this approach can significantly reduce travel time, always the largest element of picking costs, in full-case picking operations
The picked cartons are conveyed to the sorting area. There, however, the company doesn’t deploy a traditional (and expensive) high-speed automoted sorter. Instead, a simple circulating conveyor loop is used. A team of workers (number depending on case volume) remove cases from the conveyor loop and place them on the appropriate pallet as indicated on the customer ID label, applied in picking.
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