Order Picking

Order picking is a central element of internal material flow systems. It is the interface to the customer (distribution) or provides the parts or components for subsequent production processes as required (production supply). There are numerous options for designing order picking systems, which must be considered during planning. Key aspects for the design of a system are response time and costs. The cost aspect in particular is of great importance nowadays, as order picking is still characterized by a large proportion of manual processes.

The book expands on existing theories with new findings on systems, calculations, and methods for determining time data in order picking. It is aimed at students and teachers who have basic knowledge of logistics issues. It supports the reader with numerous illustrations and structured overviews that simplify familiarization with the subject. Various examples round off the scope of the book and enable the reader to reflect on the knowledge learned using these practical case studies.

About the Author:

Dr.-Ing. Christopher Reining works at the Chair of Material Handling and Warehousing at TU Dortmund and at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics. He wrote his doctoral thesis on human activity recognition in logistics and led international consulting projects in intralogistics and production at 4flow SE.

Friedrich Niemann is writing his doctoral thesis on "Context- and activity-sensitive process recognition in intralogistics" at TU Dortmund. As a researcher at the universities of Dortmund and Rostock, his responsibilities, among other things, included teaching the course "Order Picking Systems."

About the editors of the Intralogistics series

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alice Kirchheim succeeded Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael ten Hompel in 2024 as head of the Chair of Material Handling and Warehousing (FLW) at the TU Dortmund University and Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML).