The distinguishing feature of a forward-pick area is that it is especially convenient from which to pick, but, because space is limited, it must be restocked from elsewhere in the warehouse. The most common forward pick area is the ground floor of pallet rack. Popular SKUs may be picked from ground level and replenished by “dropping” overstock pallets from above, as in Figure 7.2.
For very high volume distribution of product that is conveyable, cartons may be picked from pallet flow rack to conveyor, as in Figure 7.3. In this case, an order-picker can walk up and down the aisle picking cartons, labeling them with destination, and placing them on the conveyor, which can take them to shipping。
Figure 7.2: Cartons are picked from the bottom, most convenient, level; when the bottom location has been emptied, a restocker refills it by dropping a pallet from above. Newly arriving pallets are inserted into the (high) overstock. (Adapted from “Warehouse Modernization and Layout Planning Guide”, Department of the Navy, Naval Supply Systems Command, NAVSUP Publication 529, March 1985, p 8–17).
Figure 7.3: Cartons are picked from pallet flow rack onto a conveyor. The flow rack is replenished from behind. (Adapted from “Warehouse Modernization and Layout Planning Guide”, Department of the Navy, Naval Supply Systems Command, NAVSUP
Publication 529, March 1985, p 8–17).
Both of these configurations share the same organization: a small number of locations from which it is convenient to pick from are restocked from a bulk area (also known as reserve or overstock). In the first case, the forward area is the ground floor pallet locations and the reserve includes all higher locations. In the second case, the forward pick area includes all pallet locations in the pallet flow rack and the reserve is may be a separate area of the warehouse, perhaps with very high pallet rack (not shown in the figure).
Because it is the more typical, we shall discuss the first case, picking from ground level, although everything we develop applies equally to picking from pallet flow rack.
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