Can You Optimize Convenience Store Pick & Pack?
Rethinking your shelving choices makes convenience and grocery store picking & packing more efficient
Convenience store storage solutons are essential to keep products moving rapidly and smoothly without interruptions to closely match customer demand. This maximizes throughput and requires careful inventory management.
What do we mean by picking & packing?
Going back to basics is a good way of making sure you don’t forget the essential functions and processes that are needed in any storage and distribution system. So let’s refresh our knowledge of picking and packing. Picking and packing can be thought of as the following three activities:
1. Picking
At the simplest level, picking is when an employee goes to a shelf or storage area and selects a product that will be used either to replenish a retail shelf display or to pack for shipping out to a customer.
2. Packing
Packing is the preparation and conditioning of an order either for shipping out or putting on display. In a grocery store, this might entail splitting bulk goods into smaller packages for display and direct sale.
3. Preparation
Both picking and packing rely on good preparation. This means effective storage and recording systems and a suitably trained and efficient workforce. As a minimum, you need to have a management system that does two things:
- updates your inventory to keep track of stock levels
- records completion of the picking and packing process
What are good storage systems for picking & packing?
You shouldn’t underestimate the benefits of having an efficient, easily managed storage system when you want to optimize your picking and packing operations. Poorly stacked, inefficiently stored goods occupy expensive floor space, are difficult to find when needed, and can increase spoilage, especially if you have refrigerated goods.
There are two storage systems that are important considerations for optimizing your convenience store picking and packing:
1. Wire mesh shelving
High quality wire mesh shelving is a good way of optimizing vertical and horizontal space while keeping products visible for rapid picking. Increasing the density of storage but maintaining ease of access is essential in expensive retail zoned premises, and this is something to keep at the top of your mind when optimizing convenience store picking and packing.
2. Cold chain storage
Refrigeration, and the cold supply chain, are primary concerns for food-related retailers. Cold chain storage solutions and expensive transportation are regularly employed to ensure perishable food items stay fresh. If you have to store perishable goods a cold chain storage solution that integrates with your general storage system is absolutely essential.
What are the four types of picking and packing?
Picking and packing operations come in four types, which one works best for you usually depends on the scale of your business:
1. Discrete
Discrete picking and packing is the simplest, but also the least labor efficient. Individual orders are picked by a single worker in the warehouse or back of the store, and all the items are put together in one box for packing.
2. Batch
Batch picking is where you put together multiple orders for the same item and a worker pulls out the total number of a specific item that has been ordered at that time. These are then split between individual orders during the packing phase.
3. Wave
Wave picking combines discrete and batch picking, but adds time factors – for instance you would put orders into the same wave for picking if they had the same dispatch deadline, rather than simply group them because there were the same items in each order.
4. Zone
Zone picking assigns employees to particular zones in your warehouse or storage area with responsibility for picking the items in that area. This is mostly used in distribution centers and warehouses with very high turnover of specific items.
Efficient convenience & grocery store picking & packing
Most small convenience stores and groceries only use discrete picking and packing. If they are very busy they might use batch picking and packing, or wave picking and packing if they offer a guaranteed rapid service option for home delivery. It’s very unlikely that a convenience store would have enough space or employees to use zone picking and packing.
We know the three things that improve warehouse efficiency, these are:
- maximizing space
- streamlining operations
- improving worker productivity
We need to think about these when we want to optimize convenience store picking and packing, as the principles are the same.
1. Maximizing space
Convenience and grocery stores are often in densely populated retail zones, this means that space comes at an expensive premium. The more space your inventory takes up, the less space you have for display and sales. Efficient service and display systems offer high density storage and maintain ease of access for optimized retail picking and packing
2. Streamlining your operations
Even the smallest convenience store has a workflow, and ensuring your workflow is logical and easy to manage is essential for efficient, rapid, cost-effective operation. This is not just about keeping excellent inventory records, it’s also about ensuring your inventory is stored efficiently and your storage system is making it easy for workers to pick and pack.
3. Improving worker productivity
In the fast paced, demanding, and low profit margin business environments of groceries and convenience stores, worker productivity can make all the difference between success and failure. If you are using discrete picking and packing it is especially important to reduce the distance workers have to travel to collect all the items that make up an order.
What are the key points to consider when optimizing picking & packing?
There are four things you should consider when optimizing convenience store picking and packing. Maximizing use of space is going to be the most significant in almost any retail operation, and makes shelving and storage system choices especially important.
1. Improving convenience store storage systems
Effective storage solutions organize goods and improve access. Sturdy and stable mobile metal wire shelving maximizes the use of space by enabling better vertical storage and can be moved to keep frequent use products close to the workforce. This makes more room for products and opens up access space for quicker picking and packing.
2. Efficient layout
In a convenience store or grocery there are usually a very large number of different items in your inventory. This makes efficient storage layouts very important to avoid losing stock and increasing the speed with which staff can find items to fulfill orders or replenish displays. Using a range of mobile shelving and racking types for different sizes of goods will increase efficiency as well as ensuring faster moving items are closer to the workflow.
3. Simplifying processes and routes
Remember that the fewer steps your goods have to travel from picking to packing the faster your turnover can be. The physical limit on your flow of sales is how fast your workforce can pick and pack your products. Store rapid turnover items close to the action and move lower volume goods further away. This simple action can have a surprisingly significant effect.
4. Track inventory levels with a management system
Inventory management systems enable you to maintain the most efficient inventory levels. You need to make sure you don’t run out of high demand items, but unused inventory occupies valuable storage space that should be used for higher turnover items to increase sales.
IJang Storage Solutions Optimize Picking & Packing
IJang manufactures a wide range of shelving and storage solutions. As a leading supplier of commercial & industrial, food storage & display, cold chain storage, and healthcare storage solutions, we manufacture vertical racks, metal wire shelving, pallet racking and custom containers and carts.
Our three decades of experience in meeting the needs of diverse customers are on hand to help you review and optimize your convenience store picking and packing systems.Contact us to discover how we can satisfy the unique requirements of your business.
