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We were approached to address space issues a rapidly growing company was experiencing. Starting with a total productivity assessment of the operation from sales order receipt to dispatch, one of the key issues that became apparent was the walking distances incurred by the picking staff. Monthly sales information by SKU for a period of six months was analysed and each product was categorised into fast, medium or slow groups.

A representation of every pick face slot in this 2 - 8 level shelving configuration was created in the model and by pulling in demand and location information, each slot could be identified & colour coded according to the characteristic of the product it contained. It was then very quick to see where fast (green) and slow (red) products were located and if this was appropriate.

Seeing the potential of such a tool we were asked to design a further version of the model that would model any month requested and instead of just ABC categories, up to 9 different categories depending on the frequency of pick face visits (derived from the order information supplied). This refinement demonstrated even more clearly some of the less efficient product placements, which the client was easily able to rectify.