Among the many consequences of the prolonged economic downturn is fragmented narrow-cast marketing that drives SKU proliferation and increased inventory levels. The typical 20/80 curve may be changing to 20/65, or worse, making it that much harder to kill the slow movers if they actually account for more of the revenue pie. As this happens it will impact on inventory levels and order fulfillment efficiency forcing distributors to look for alternatives to hold down cost.

From a purely warehousing and order fulfillment perspective, wouldn’t it be great if all of the efficiency-killing slow moving SKUs could just be eliminated. But that’s not going to happen and ignoring them just makes matters worse.

New Methods for Managing an Old “Pain-in-the-Neck”

Many distributors are forced to maintain a dedicated picking position for even the slowest of the slow movers, taking up valuable pick-face space that is poorly utilized. Some have found significant improvement through the adoption of Product-to-Picker technologies.

For example - a mini-load AS/RS designed to handle individual loads (cases, totes, trays) is a popular product-to-picker solution for managing slow-moving SKUs. In this scenario, when a slow-moving SKU is required, the crane-like multi-shuttle system retrieves that item from its high bay storage location and creates a temporary pick face for it. When order fulfillment is complete, the AS/RS places that SKU back into high density storage. This eliminates the need for a pick face in the DC for each slow mover, freeing up valuable space.

A semi-automated version of the above utilizes dynamic slotting functionality of your WMS. In this scenario when an order is released that includes a slow moving SKU without a dedicated pick face, a temporary pick slot is created by the WMS. That slot is then filled (manually) with product from reserve storage to meet that need.

In some cases distributors are deploying horizontal carousels to handle slow movers. For example - Coty Inc., the world’s largest fragrance company, found that while its 900 slowest moving SKUs amounted to only about 2 percent of total volume, they led to substantial bottlenecks in order processing. Coty implemented two 65 foot long, five-shelf, light-directed horizontal carousels, which led to much more effective picking operations and storage density for those slow movers.

It is noteworthy that carousels are used extensively in service parts distribution – an environment often characterized by huge numbers of mostly slow moving SKUs.

For some distributors, especially those with an ever growing percentage of slow movers, moving from a “pick” operation to a “put” operation may provide a more efficient solution - see (Put System Provides A 3X Increase in Order Fulfillment).

Final Thoughts

The above provides just a few examples of managing slow movers. In the final analysis, as SKU velocity and customer order profiles continue to change, it may be time to re-evaluate picking strategies based on our evolving global and extended markets, which require distributors to process and manage increasingly differentiated products with shorter life cycles, low volumes and ever shorter customer delivery times.

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