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Warehouse Performance: breaking new ground in the warehouse with optimized inventory reservation! (Part 2/4)

17.09.2021

Do you still remember? In our last article "Warehouse Performance: Through the consistent use of data, discover and use hidden potential in the warehouse! (Part 1/4)" we gave you a first overview of the possibilities to increase your "Warehouse Performance".

This time, we would like to introduce you to the first phase of optimizing your warehouse performance, namely optimizing inventory reservation:

Whether and to what extent an optimization of the stock reservation makes sense at all, depends primarily always on the putaway strategy currently in use. As a rule, optimization potential only arises if the stored items are located in several places in the warehouse - which sometimes also means different aisles. Because these many reservation possibilities of single order items are one of the crucial points for too long picking ways and times of the employees in the warehouse. Thus, the goal of optimizing stock reservation is to form strategically sensible combinations from the various available options in order to keep the walking distances as short as possible in relation to an order.

With regard to the use of a putaway strategy, in which the inventory of an item is stored at only one location, there is initially no alternative for optimized inventory reservation. However, this does not mean that optimization measures cannot also be implemented in this case, for example through intelligent stock transfer processes in the course of the »warehouse healing« strategy, which we will discuss in more detail in another article.
But let's take a brief look at the optimization of stock reservation using a concrete example from practice: in many cases, the reserved items are located in different aisles, the storage locations are apparently »far« apart, so that the walking distances for the employees in the course of the picking round trip take up quite a bit of time. Under the aforementioned condition that the articles are to be found in several places in the warehouse, this process can be solved in a much smarter way.

What does the whole thing look like in practice? Optimization of inventory reservation is first of all oriented to the typology and layout of the picking areas in the warehouse. On this basis, the individual check sequences are also to be configured to the requirements and circumstances area by area. The overriding goal of stock reservation within an order is to achieve a minimization of distances in relation to the stocks to be reserved. In short, during stock reservation, the system checks at which point in the warehouse the individual items can be reserved as close together as possible in order to achieve the most »dense« picking possible for the order. As a result of stock reservation, the stock initially remains physically in the warehouse, but is no longer freely available.

In relation to an order, all articles are now reserved in a single aisle, so that the picking paths and times in a round trip remain as short as possible for the employees. This not only ensures increased efficiency when picking orders, but is also a first step towards optimizing the intralogistics processes in the warehouse as a whole.

As a connoisseur of the matter, you will now interject: But what about the other relevant reservation parameters such as FIFO, batch numbers, remaining lead times? You are of course right that these must still be adhered to within the picking path reduction, or at least within a certain framework.
Would you like to learn more about the individual phases for optimizing your performance in the warehouse? Then also read »Warehouse Performance: from optimized inventory reservation to intelligent batch planning for efficient warehouse logistics! (Part 3/4)«

We have aroused your interest and you would like to know more details about it already now? Don't hesitate to contact us!



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