Spread three / Left leaf / The pick note
Routes, bays and the pick confirmation
A pick note is the order with the customer’s sequence taken out of it and the floor’s sequence put in. Nothing else about it changes.
1 × shelf bracket, pair — C7
2 × picture hook, brass — A3
1 × drawer runner set — D2
1 × cable tidy, 2 m — A6
4 × furniture glide — B4
“That’s everything I think. The brackets are the ones I asked about.”
Five lines in the order they were added to the basket, which is the order the customer thought of them, which is a tour of the floor: aisle C, back to A, out to D, back to A again and then B. Handed to a picker exactly as written it is eighty-nine metres of walking and two chances to miss a line, because the second visit to aisle A comes after the picker has stopped thinking about aisle A.
The note that actually goes out carries the same five lines in the sequence A3, A6, B4, C7, D2 — sixty-six metres, one pass, each aisle entered once. The customer’s sequence is not lost; it stays on the order record, and it is the sequence the packing note is printed in, because that is the order they will read it in when the box is opened.
Spread three / Right leaf / The floor, aisle by aisle
How a bay is addressed
The letter runs A upwards from the aisle nearest the packing bench, so aisle A is the one the shortest pick lives in. The number counts in from the cross aisle: a low number is near the door, a high number is deep. The level is spoken and never written on the pick note — bottom, middle, top.
A bay is a face, not a volume. Two different items never share one bay code, however much room is left, and that is the rule worth paying for: a pick becomes a single read. The picker reads C7 off the note, reads C7 off the label on the beam, and whatever is in front of them is the right thing or the bay is wrong. There is nothing to choose between on the shelf, so there is nothing to choose wrongly.
Right leaf / The rule that fixes a route
One pass, one direction
A route is fixed by three rules and nothing else, which is why it can be read straight off a sorted list.
- Sort
By aisle first, then by bay number inside the aisle. No judgement is made about the goods.
- Enter once
Every line in an aisle is taken on the way in. No aisle is walked twice on one note.
- Return
Out to the cross aisle before the next aisle, and back to the bench at the end.
The difference between a clever route and this one is a few metres. The difference between this one and no route at all is printed below.
It is not the shortest possible route and it is not meant to be. The shortest route changes with every order and has to be worked out; this one can be read off a sorted list by somebody who started this morning.
Tool / Pick-route step counter
Put your own bays through it
Write the bays in the order the lines came off the order. The sheet reorders them, walks both sequences from the bench and back, and prints every leg.
| Leg | Working | Metres |
|---|---|---|
| BENCH → A3 | 0.0 out + 2.6 across + 3.6 in | 6.2 |
| A3 → A6 | 3 bay pitches × 1.2 m | 3.6 |
| A6 → B4 | 7.2 out + 2.6 across + 4.8 in | 14.6 |
| B4 → C7 | 4.8 out + 2.6 across + 8.4 in | 15.8 |
| C7 → D2 | 8.4 out + 2.6 across + 2.4 in | 13.4 |
| D2 → BENCH | 2.4 out + 10.4 across + 0.0 in | 12.8 |
| Aisle order | A3 · A6 · B4 · C7 · D2 — 89 steps | 66.4 |
| Order as given | C7 · A3 · D2 · A6 · B4 — 119 steps | 89.2 |
| Saved | 89.2 − 66.4 m across 4 aisles of 8 bays | 22.8 |
Guide only — this counts walking against three stated assumptions: 1.2 m between bays along an aisle, 2.6 m between aisle heads and a 0.75 m pace. It does not know about a trolley that will not fit, a bay at floor level that has to be knelt at, or two pickers meeting in the same aisle. Use it to compare two sequences, not to set a time.
Right leaf / Proving the pick
The pick confirmation
Three things happen at the bay and they happen in this order, because each one is checked by the one after it.
- The bay is read back. The code on the beam is read against the code on the note before anything is touched. A bay that does not match stops the line there and then.
- The units are counted into the tote one at a time, out loud, to the figure on the note. Counting out of the bay and into the tote is one count, not two.
- The line is initialled on the note. An uninitialled line is treated at the check bench as unpicked, even if the units are sitting in the tote.
A short line is never fixed at the bay. The picker marks the figure actually found, initials it and carries on; the decision about what to do belongs at the check bench, where the substitution instruction and the rest of the order can be seen together. A picker who quietly substitutes has made a decision for the customer in the one place on the floor where the customer’s instruction is not written down.
Totes are not shared between orders. One tote, one pick note, one check. It costs more totes and it saves the only mistake that is genuinely hard to unpick afterwards: two orders mixed at the bench, both wrong, neither obviously so.