Unless you’ve been in hiding you will know that the warehouse industry is booming at an astounding rate. E-commerce increased exponentially during the pandemic and experts think the trend is here to stay, as even the grey pound abandons the high street in favour of online shopping. It's no wonder Segro’s share price has doubled since 2019.

For warehousers and builders, this demand is a reason to celebrate, but occupiers are concerned. Rents are rising as demand for bigger sheds outstrips the supply. The pressure is on occupiers to be ever more vigilant about protecting their profitability.

Picking accuracy is an awkward topic in warehousing, oft-overlooked as a potential area of improvement because of its complexity. Improving staff training is one option, but is expensive and unsuitable for seasonal agency workers. Increasing the number of checkpoints on the journey through picking, packing and loading could be another route; but relies on workers remembering to scan items. There will, after all, always be human error to account for (and once warehouses are fully autonomized, robot error).

But Order Picking Accuracy (OPA) has also become a measuring-stick for corporate pride, a litmus test showing how well-oiled the warehouse is. Few will openly admit to an OPA below 98%. But orders of magnitude mean that if just 2% of a busy warehouse’s orders are going astray, that can account to a huge amount annually: let’s crunch the numbers.

For example, Logisticomms recently carried out work for a mid-sized company shipping an average of 280 orders per day. Their OPA was 98.84%: average for the industry. A pick error rate of 1.16% seems small, but when you consider 250 working days x 280 orders, that works out at 812 mis-picked orders a year. If each order averages out at £250, that is £203,000 a year in lost revenue, not including the added costs of reverse logistics or damaged customer trust.

So how to increase picking accuracy in a staff-friendly, budget-friendly way? Brymec are a building services manufacturer that deployed the VideoAudit surveillance system in their Couldson facility.  

“We have had really good feedback from the staff about VideoAudit. They love the fact that they can prove that they have done their job correctly. The ability to zoom in on a box on the pack bench, and identify exactly what products are in that box, has been a massive win for us. VideoAudit helped us achieve a 0.02% pick error rate.”

Anthony Baxter, Director at Logisticomms, commented, “The main barrier to increasing picking accuracy is a lack of visibility in the warehouse. This leads to a lack of traceability of the orders. Most larger firms now use a management system (WMS) but need to be able to instantly search for a specific barcode or consignment number to prove visually where the item is.  

The VideoAudit system was specifically designed to address the OPA problem in a deeply technical way which remains CEO-friendly. It is a video management tool which integrates with existing CCTV and WMS to identify trends in picking accuracy. No order need ever be unneccessarily reimbursed again, because it will be timestamped with video evidence to show it being picked, packed and loaded – and the numberplate of the transport too. Security Managers, Loss Prevention Managers, Site Managers, Finance Directors and even the C-suite can all view the video on their phone or desktop to identify the areas where profit is leaking from the warehouse.”

To find out more about how Logisticomms could help improve your picking accuracy rate, book a meeting via the website at www.logisticomms.com or email steph.frow@anchorss.co.uk.