WEP Checklist Tool

Warehouse Error Prevention Checklist Tool:

Manual Order Picking (OP) is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. Poor human and OP system interactions can cause pick errors. The Warehouse Error Prevention Checklist tool (WEP) is to be used by warehouse designers and engineers for an assessment of the interaction of humans with the order picking system design to minimize the pick error occurrence. To do so, Human Factors (HF) which is a multidisciplinary scientific discipline which aims to optimize system performance and an individual’s well-being by understanding the system design elements and human-system interaction (IEA-Council 2000) has been considered. This tool consists of specific design criteria which are classified based on the OP design elements (Module 1- 5) and organizational behavior and facility design management (Module 6) with respect to HF as follows:

·  Module 1: shelf layout/layout design: This module includes defined facility and shelf layout to minimize an order picker’s physical and cognitive loads.

·  Module 2: pick information and technology design: This module includes defined criteria needed to avoid exceeding order picker’s perceptual demands by minimizing reading mistakes while using traditional picklist and reading labels. The new pick technology criteria have been defined to reduce order pickers’ cognitive, perceptual, and physical demands.

·  Module 3: storage assignment design: This module includes defined criteria on item allocation to the storage location to minimize an order picker’s physical and cognitive loads.

·  Module 4: palletizing/batching: This module includes defined item batching and stacking criteria to minimize an order picker’s physical and cognitive loads.

·  Module 5: routing: This module includes defined routing strategy to minimize an order picker’s physical and cognitive loads.

·  Module 6: organizational behaviour management: This module includes defined psychosocial factors such as motivation and training to minimize an order picker’s psychosocial demands. Also, it contains defined environmental criteria such as light, noise, and temperature to minimize an order picker’s perceptual demands