Wave picking
What is wave picking?
Wave picking releases a group of orders to the floor at once, on a schedule: a wave is defined by something operational (a carrier cutoff, a route, a customer group, a time of day) and the pickers work that group together before the next one opens. It trades individual order speed for control over when the floor is busiest.
What defines a good wave
- The deadline it serves: the last wave of the day is the one the trucks are waiting for.
- The work it balances: enough orders to justify the trip, few enough to finish before the next release.
- The labor available: waves match staffing to demand instead of letting orders arrive whenever they like.
Wave, batch, zone
The three are different questions. Wave is about when a group is released (scheduling). Batch is about what travels together in one picker's hands (grouping orders to cut walking). Zone is about where each picker works (splitting the warehouse so nobody crosses it). A wave often contains batches run by zone pickers: they compose, and a system that confuses them will release work it cannot balance.