An evaluation of order picking policies for mail order companies

This paper is concerned with the problem of order picking in mail order com panies. Order picking is the retrieval of items from their warehouse storag e locations to satisfy customer orders. Five order picking policies, strict order, batch, sequential zone, batch zone, and wave, are evaluated using l abor requirements, processing time, and customer service as performance mea sures. A simulation model was developed to investigate these picking polici es in a mail order environment. Prior research has focused on the study of individual picking policies. This study extends the prior research by evalu ating multiple picking policies under varying operating conditions. The res ults of the study seem to indicate that (1) wave picking and batch picking perform well across the range of operating conditions considered in this st udy, and (2) sequential zone and batch zone picking do not perform well, es pecially as the order volume increases. However, the benefits and drawbacks to each picking policy must be taken into account. The key to effective im plementation of an order picking system is to match the firm's business str ategy, capabilities, technology, and space requirements with an order picki ng policy that maximizes the benefits of order picking to the firm and its customers.