What Is Slotting in a Warehouse? SOPs and Benefits to Merchants

What Is Warehouse Slotting?

Again, for a working day of 8 hours, the picker can complete 40 orders in one day. Pickers should be able to do their jobs quickly, without giving extra thought to configuring items in the box and playing Tetris. Again, though the concepts are not difficult to understand, gathering and organizing the above data can be a hassle. There are dozens of posts on all the fancy ways to use this software package or the next to determine which products are frequently ordered together. To avoid confusion, we’ll use “warehouse layout” for macro slotting.

Finally, the last thing you need to consider about warehouse slotting involves adjustments. After all, your business is constantly changing and odds are your orders will too. One layout may make sense now but may not make sense in the future. On the other hand, you don’t want to make https://quickbooks-payroll.org/ constant changes all the time that will only end up confusing your pickers. This is why warehouse slotting involves finding a happy medium between going with the flow and letting things be. After you’ve laid the groundwork, it’s now time to actually implement your slotting strategy!

Optimizes overall sales and throughput

In this competitive environment, you need to ensure that you provide the best possible shopping experience to your customers during the festive season. And one of the best ways to do that is by providing fast shipping.

What Is Warehouse Slotting?

With a good slotting strategy in place, the inventories are already placed in ideal locations. Upon order drops, pickers will move around within the warehouse to complete the orders. Since the picking process is smooth, the speed will naturally increase and so will the productivity. Figuring out the right picking sequence and slotting strategy is a balancing act. You may have competing priorities when it comes to which products to place where and in what order they should be picked.

Random Slotting vs. Fixed Slotting: What’s the Difference

Retailers sometimes capitalize on this by charging slotting fees. Slotting fees are charges that manufacturers pay for prime shelf placement in stores. Third-party logistics companies don’t charge slotting fees for shelf placements in a warehouse or distribution center. Keeping in mind the priority of inventory while slotting them is essential. Items that are picked up frequently should be kept in easy-to-access locations.

What Is Warehouse Slotting?

Coffee beans and other temperature-sensitive items are kept away from heat sources or windows to prevent spoilage. If there are inefficiencies, such as common bottlenecks or difficulties locating an SKU, slotting can eliminate these issues. To complete 160 orders, there is now a requirement of 4 pickers instead. If a picker takes 15 minutes to complete an order, he will complete 4 orders in an hour. Assuming 8 working hours, the picker will complete 32 orders in a day.

Warehouse Slotting Explained

While warehouse slotting takes dedicated time and effort, it yields many benefits when done correctly. By reorganizing inventory according to actual sales and warehouse movement SKUs are easier to find, allowing pickers to be more productive.

  • If there is any shift in sales demand or decrease in efficiency, the area or entire warehouse may require reslotting.
  • However, this activity is beneficial during seasonal changes, especially if there is a major change in your seasonal sales volume every season.
  • While it may take some time to determine optimal layouts and inventory storage, it can result in big benefits for your ecommerce business.
  • To start, it’s important to have at least a full year’s worth, including any seasonality and projected inventory growth.
  • Discover the products that 31,000+ customers depend on to fuel their growth.
  • As a result, at this point in their growth, many eCommerce businesses choose to outsource their fulfillment operations to a 3PL.
  • Warehouse slotting won’t work well unless managers consider macro-slotting along with the micro.

Decreased human error and improved accuracy in the picking process. You can also look into other factors that could contribute to warehouse efficiency.

Why Warehouse Slotting Matters for Merchants

By doing the slotting in your warehouse you can maximize the efficiency in your operations and see a significant increase in productivity. Slotting saves a considerable amount of time and effort spent on routine tasks.

  • SKU data typically includes information such as an item’s size and weight.
  • A nonfiction book on a given topic often accompanies 2-3 other books on that same topic.
  • These items are then grouped — 50% of items with the most line orders go under group A, the next 25% as group B and the last 25% in group C.
  • The result is a facility that doesn’t just operate at the peak of efficiency, but helps the company out-perform its competitors.
  • Slotting is essential to proper warehouse management, affecting both inbound and outbound logistics processes, but it can be a challenge to get started.
  • Cutting travel time is a benefit that contributes to, but distinct from, faster picking.
  • For example, a coffee wholesaler in the process of adding to its inventory might assume it needs a bigger space and more employees.

Fixed slotting is a warehouse slotting method where you assign a specific space to each product. During inventory replenishment, you replace each SKU in its designated slot on the shelf. You can keep a map of the warehouse with the slots for each item. During the holiday season, however, the top-of-the-line toolset becomes a best seller. For gift season, the high-end toolsets make exciting gifts for the builders and fixers in people’s lives. If this change in relative sales volume is significant enough, it makes sense to move these items closer to the packing station.

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When an item comes in, you assign it to the most appropriate space available. To manage a chaotic inventory management system, you’ll need warehouse management software. Warehouse slotting by sales volume or velocity has one downside, however. In a busy warehouse, concentrating too many workers in the same area can lead to bottlenecks.

Looking for a fulfillment partner that can guarantee on-time and accurate delivery to your customers? The most advanced system will fail if it’s given improper data, and the most capable labor force will make mistakes if the system fails. These designations can now be used to arrange items by groups, with the “A” items closest to your down-forward picking area.

What Is Warehouse Slotting?

Warehouse slotting is the process of organizing the inventory in a warehouse or distribution center. The overall goal is to make both What Is Warehouse Slotting? picking and replenishment quicker, easier, and more efficient. Order history can help you understand which items move the fastest.

Using warehouse slotting to improve customer happiness

You should thoughtfully decide how to group products in a way that makes sense for your picking needs. How many times has a warehouse worker had to pass a bunch of slow-moving items just to get to the fast-moving items? How many times do your workers rush back and forth across an aisle to pick all the items for an order?

  • It should facilitate storing all items that are supposed to be there .
  • Grouping fast-moving and slow-moving items together can help increase picking speed.
  • “Slotting” by itself refers to micro slotting of SKUs and groups.
  • Again, though the concepts are not difficult to understand, gathering and organizing the above data can be a hassle.
  • The quantities in a typical order will also affect your warehouse slotting strategy.
  • Make an impression on your customers, check out their design studio or talk to a packaging expert to create the best packaging solutions that make sense for your warehouse.
  • This is where high-velocity SKUs should be stored for easiest access on your shelves.

Reorganizing zones, or even an entire warehouse, can seem like a daunting and time-consuming project. As facility managers deal with increasing complexity, software is the best and only choice for warehouse slotting. That means that warehouse managers can offload the responsibility of warehouse slotting and focus on their core competencies. SKU data typically includes information such as an item’s size and weight. It’s best to ensure a heavy item is first in the pick order, which means SKU data is critical. Also, workers need to assemble cubes that don’t exceed the dimensions of the pallet underneath.

For example, men’s razors are often bought together with replacement blades and shaving cream . A nonfiction book on a given topic often accompanies 2-3 other books on that same topic. Grouping items typically bought together creates much shorter pick paths for your workers. Slotting can help identify opportunities to increase storage capacity. Remember, speed is not the only end-goal of the slotting process. It shouldn’t just be easy to get to a particular shelf — it should also be easy to find an item on that shelf.

options for slotting inventory and improving efficiency

When macro slotting, the facility manager must consider the arrangement of their pick zones. Another critical consideration in warehouse layout is the nature of the products. From there, workers can easily load boxes onto picking carts built to carry heavy loads safely. Warehouse slotting often involves analyzing the available storage and the items to be slotted.

If not, the slots might break and damage the other products in the slot. Also, keep the potentially hazardous items separately and away from other inventory. Moving items from one warehouse to another is a time-consuming activity.

That gives you more time to do what you do best—develop and sell great products. No one knows how effective a new slotting strategy is better than pickers. Ask for their feedback on how to improve a slotting strategy both before and after implementation.

Especially for each pick , there is a “sweet spot” that is easiest for pickers to see and reach. This is where high-velocity SKUs should be stored for easiest access on your shelves. Slower-moving SKUs should be out of the way, with the heaviest SKUs being low . That lack of discussion really is a shame, because few activities have as much effect on warehouse operations and efficiency as slotting does. This is the main reason why we love this piece, “8 DC and Warehouse Slotting Considerations for More Efficient Warehouse Operations” published by Cerasis on their blog.

Get a demo of ShipMonk’s WMS today, or contact us for more ways to reduce your fulfillment costs. For example, a coffee wholesaler in the process of adding to its inventory might assume it needs a bigger space and more employees. Slotting is a common practice among companies that stock inventory in a warehouse or distribution center. This may be inventory directly sold to consumers, such as in retail and e-commerce, or to other businesses, like distributors and manufacturers. Its goal is to make sure each SKU is placed at the most optimal point along the pick path, which is the route taken by pickers when accomplishing warehouse tasks. Slotting inventory seeks to achieve maximum efficiency and storage capacity. The accessibility of the items should always be made easy and within the reach of workers.

While re-slotting is necessary at times, but it can be a real pain and very time-consuming. If you don’t have the ability to do it at any given point, another solution to re-slotting is a maintenance move. Growth requires periodic changes and improvements to your workflow. The more orders you get, the more streamlined you will want your process to be. We grow your business by getting you closer to your customers with guaranteed 2-day delivery.

By taking steps such as separating the different sizes of red polo shirts, you make it easy for pickers to identify the correct SKUs for each order quickly. The process of organizing items for warehouse slotting isn’t always intuitive. Here are some of the most common approaches to warehouse slotting.

Pickers can visually recognize the goods and picking activity can be done more efficiently, by placing inventory in the right locations . Productivity, speed, and proper shipping practices are all things you want to consider. Moreover, it’s really about striking the perfect balance with your slotting and sequencing that will allow for optimal warehouse operation. Assigning items to slots in your warehouse becomes an advantage when you understand which items go in each slot. Ranking slots by priority is one way to make things easy on your warehouse team.

Manhattan WMS supplier has a slotting module in their software suite. There is a standalone program of varying capability, available, in order to be integrated with your WMS. This content is for information purposes only and should not be considered legal, accounting or tax advice, or a substitute for obtaining such advice specific to your business. No assurance is given that the information is comprehensive in its coverage or that it is suitable in dealing with a customer’s particular situation. Intuit Inc. does not have any responsibility for updating or revising any information presented herein.

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