Our dedicated design team recently helped an electrical and industrial components distributor through every step from the design to the final product being delivered.
The client was struggling to handle the capacity of online orders using old shopping trolleys to pick and pack orders in their distribution centre, especially with large volumes of orders coming through after a successful advertising campaign on promising secure online ordering, same day dispatch and free delivery.
The customer was in need of a bespoke mobile picking and packing bench to help staff handle the increases in volume and separate the orders off the conveyor belt efficiently and in an orderly fashion to minimise errors and take back control of the situation. The bench was primarily a packaging area that had to be mobile so staff could respond to high volume areas quickly within the sorting hub, secondly the bench had to act as a shelving system, storing a large number of small parts such various size Jiffy bags, envelopes, tape and holding area for picking documentation for each operator.
After carrying out an onsite assessment and discussing the objectives with the client, Action Handling’s bespoke project team set about producing a basic prototype to assess the functionality of the unit. The customer was able to have a trial run with space being a premium, Action used shelving dividers to optimise the benches storage capacity. They were very happy with the construction of the trolley. After discussing a few ideas, they asked for the worktop to be slightly higher from the ground, which we easily overcame by simply going for a 100mm castor rather than the 75mm ones that we used for the sample. It was also noticed in trial that the front MDF edges got knocked about, so they were upgraded to have a plastic covered front face and the same improvement was made to the perimeter of the fold down shelves. Finally, After viewing the unit in action and being used by staff, we suggested that further improvements for the bench by fitting a plastic laminate top as another option, which the client would be very suitable for their application as it is a material that could we easily wiped down and was robust for the day to day use by staff.
The customer was over the moon and the staff within the distribution centre now have a trolley that fits their needs rather than struggling with a trolley that they had to make do with and the results after the first month are amazing for agency staff, 14% more orders were picked than the same period last year.
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