Improving order picking performance utilizing slotting and golden zone storage

Purpose With the current interest in all aspects of supply chain management, the demands on warehousing have changed significantly within the past few years. In an attempt to meet this challenge, warehouses have become more concerned with proper slotting and storage techniques. This paper seeks to evaluate slotting measures and storage assignment strategies in a simulated manual bin-shelving (low level picker-to-part) warehouse in terms of travel distance and the fulfillment time to complete an order. Design/methodology/approach The approach utilises Monte Carlo simulation of a manual bin-shelving pick area. Findings The results illustrate that popularity, turnover, and cube-per-order index (COI) performed best among slotting measures. Several new storage assignment strategies utilizing the concept of “golden zone” picking, which slots high demand stock-keeping units (SKUs) at the height between the picker's waist and shoulders, were introduced. Results from the simulation study show that the golden zone storage assignment strategies generated significant savings in order fulfillment time compared to storage policies that ignore the golden zone concept.