Holste Says... |
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| The order fulfillment process must take into account the changing needs of each customer including individual consumers. |
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It is not uncommon for a shipper to be forced to react (often with little or no prior notice) to new never seen before requirements or specifications being imposed by a broad spectrum of high value customers. These customized services usually require setting up a separate standalone manual processing area which, in turn, adds a whole new dimension of operational complexity and cost. Failure to comply can result in an entire shipment being rejected, substantial charge backs and possible loss of business.
Going forward, the order fulfillment process must take into account the changing needs of each customer including individual consumers. While picking order profiles may be similar across a wide range of SKUs, kitting, order assembly, packing and shipping requirements must be accounted for within the system operation while maintaining speed and order accuracy. If some type of personalization, like monogramming, is being offered, that must be flagged and handled as a completely separate (discrete) process in addition to order picking.
What could be considered “new” is that discrete order picking processes are now being supported by highly flexible, adaptable, and agile automated solutions. The axiom that - the more automated a process is, the less flexible it is - has been debunked by intelligent control and software systems that can look ahead and make adjustments in real-time. This rapidly emerging technology has been made possible by relatively cheap computing power with blazingly fast processing speeds.
Final Thoughts
Do to the proliferation of individualized customer specific services, discrete order picking based on a new generation of automation technologies, such as robots and vision-guided AGVs, offers a viable alternative order fulfillment strategy that must be considered.
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