You may have seen an order picker in action at a hardware store or another warehouse. Perhaps you’re considering using one in your own facility or trying to understand its purpose and benefits. In this article, we’ll explain what an order picker is used for and why many warehouse managers find it a worthwhile investment.
Why Would You Need an Order Picker?
Many companies follow Pareto’s law, also known as the 80-20 rule, which states that 20% of the products make up 80% of the business. In warehousing, this translates to around 50% of SKUs representing only 5% of your storage volume. The challenge is how to efficiently store those SKUs.
One solution is to use an order picker in a dedicated, narrow aisle. With wire-guided or rail-guided systems, aisle dimensions can be reduced to as narrow as 52 inches. Products are stored on wire mesh decks, and operators manually load or unload cases from the storage.
Another way to use an order picker is for large, high-cube pick slots. For example, car parts distributors often use order pickers to retrieve larger items like fenders and mouldings from elevated slots.
Order pickers are also valuable for tasks like cycle-counting and inventory management. They allow operators to easily access pick slots, making it simpler to count and verify inventory levels efficiently.