Cluttered Aisles / Clogged Shipping Areas:
One word: Safety. Oh, alright, a few more words. To fulfill orders correctly and quickly, the warehouse folks need to move freely around the entire warehouse, they need access to all racks and shelves with speed and ease. Aisles and shipping areas filled with partial orders, returns and damaged goods is a disaster waiting to happen.
· A partial order or damaged good is going to make it onto a truck and get delivered.
· Back-ordered items? They risk getting added to the wrong partial order.
· Partial orders, damaged goods and returns sit, sit, and wait and sit some more. Whilst in the aisles or in shipping, they are getting knocked about – hit by forklifts, shoved out of the way, stashed under who knows what. They get lost. They get damaged. There’s no way to follow up, as you can’t even find them!!
· Some enterprising order picker will spy a part sitting/waiting on the floor. They snag it, as they need that part to complete another order. Now that partial order is a bit more partial than you thought! (Ouch)
Clearly marked areas for damaged goods and returns would go a long way to sorting this out. How about no partial orders? Only pick an order when the order is complete.