Time efficiency and physical workload in manual picking from large containers

Abstract

A common task in both trade and manufacturing, manual picking from large containers often involves considerable physical workload, as well as low efficiency and varying picking times. With quantitative evidence from an industrial setting, the paper provides detailed insights into how physical workload and picking time vary in picking from large containers. Components at a short horizontal distance from the picker and at the top instead of the bottom of the pallet are associated with shorter picking time and lower physical workload. Moreover, pallets tilted 45° towards the picker are associated with picking times that are significantly shorter on average and display smaller variations than horizontal pallets. The effects that the tilting of the pallets has on physical workload differs depending on component characteristics and from which section of the containers picking was performed. In the study, the greatest values of physical workload were observed for the tilted pallets.

Keywords:

• kit preparation
• order picking
• large containers
• physical workload
• picking time

Acknowledgements

We thank research engineer Hans Sjöberg at Chalmers University of Technology for his support in performing the measurements using the Jack computer manikin.