Friday, July 24, 2020
Even as warehouses attempt to get back to ‘normal’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, most operations have had to find ways to update themselves for safety. The risk of coronavirus being spread through crowded workplaces and/or outgoing shipments still looms large, and many warehouses have had to implement stricter safety & hygiene rules to keep their staff safe. Among these changes, aimed at providing a safer workplace as well as a safer delivery experience, is the rise of hands free warehousing.
What is hands-free warehousing?Hands free warehousing refers to the idea of reducing the amount of ‘touches’ an item receives as it moves through a warehouse, as well as streamlining the tools a worker needs to perform counts, pick items, and complete other daily warehouse tasks. ‘Touches’, in this case, refers to the amount of individual workers that come into contact with a single given item (or single given order, in the case of batch picking or order picking) as it works its way to the customer. This includes order pickers, the shipping/receiving team (as they prepare the items to go to their final destination), and even the amount of logistics personnel that handle the item during delivery. While the information is still a little inconsistent as to how much of a role surface transmission plays in the spread of COVID-19, going more hands-free and reducing the amount of touches your items encounter can go a long way towards keeping your staff safer and healthier overall, as well as your customers.
How can my warehouse go hands-free?Even small changes to how items get tracked, counted, and processed in your warehouse can go a long way towards being more hands-off with your product handling. Some easy-to-implement hands-free warehousing methods include:
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