Selecting the Optimal Put-Away Method: Strategies and Considerations
ABC analysis can be used to determine the put-away method/selection of storage location. Goods to be put away can be classified as A, B, or C. High demand items are usually classified as A. These will be stored near to despatch to minimise pick times. Goods classified as B will be medium-demand goods. These will be stored further from despatch, since they are ordered less frequently. Goods classified as C will be furthest away from despatch, because they are ordered with the least frequency.
Goods should be sorted for efficient put away, so that the operative knows roughly which area of the warehouse to take the good to for put-away. In this regard, zone-based put-away is very similar to ABC classification. Goods are sorted according to the zone of the warehouse in which they will be stored. In most cases, the zone of storage will be related to the goods’ frequency of pick, with less frequently ordered goods in zones that are further from the despatch zone.
Size-based put-away systems are also possible. Amazon warehouses are famous for the use of size-based storage location. In such a system, products are placed together according to the similarity of their physical dimensions, not according to pick frequency (although that can be considered with certain categories of product that are strong performers, i.e. picked most frequently). Operators who know how the size of a product determines the zone of its storage can perform efficient put-away operations. For example, if medium size products tend to be stored in aisles D to G, then the operator can quickly determine from the product’s size where it is likely to be put away, group products of similar size accordingly, and put away multiple items at once.
The reverse is also true. If the picker is aware of the physical dimensions of a product, then he or she will know approximately the area of the warehouse in which it is likely to be found. Through item labelling, barcoding, or RFID tagging, storage details become viewable and sorting operations simplified. But operatives can further speed up the put-away process by simply grouping products on pallets according to their physical dimensions. In this system, sorting at the point of receipt can be very efficient, receipting staff are only required to group products by their dimensions, and put-away operatives simply move grouped products to the appropriate area of the warehouse. The exact storage point will be specified by the label, but travel will be minimized, the need for intensive scanning will be reduced, and complex sorting for put-away pallets will be eliminated.