An efficient order picking method is important to control the operating cost of a warehouse. Order batching in the form of waves attempts to increase the throughput of a picking trip in the number of orders and items picked.
A heuristic was developed to batch orders to pick them in waves. The heuristic developed eliminates trips to aisles that need to be visited the least for a day’s orders that remain un-batched. The time saved by skipping aisles in a wave is used for picking.
The heuristic developed requires fewer waves to pick a set of orders and picks more orders per wave as compared to the FCFS method. Thus, labor savings are realized because pickers are not required for the eliminated waves. Also, since a greater number of orders are processed in the waves, they can be shipped sooner to the customers resulting in a higher throughput and a better customer service for the warehouse.