The efficiency of your warehouse operations is critical to the success of your order fulfillment and online retail performance. Yet, thanks to the many gaps and loopholes, inefficiencies can be quite difficult to manage and eliminate.
With that in mind, the Pick-to-Light (PTL) system is specifically built to streamline and boost the efficiency of your order picking processes. No wonder the market for PTL systems is set to grow from $775.6 million in 2025 to $1.48 billion by 2035.
What is a Pick-to-Light System?
Order picking is a pivotal part of a typical order processing workflow and is a fairly straightforward part of the process, as long as you implement the right tools and systems. A Pick-to-Light system is a visual order picking technology that utilises digital displays and light modules to navigate the picking process accurately and efficiently.
These displays and modules are mounted on shelves, racks, or bins across the warehouse so that the operators can find the exact location of items in a warehouse and access the right quantities of SKUs for every customer order.
In most cases, these PTL systems work best when they are integrated within more comprehensive Warehouse Management Systems (WMS).
For every order, the PTL system will light up the slot and display the exact quantity to be picked. The picker must then confirm each pick, and the system will log the action and update quantities accordingly.
When implemented properly, a PTL system can seamlessly replace traditional paper-based pick lists or handheld devices, which are prone to errors. While PTL systems are ideal for batch, order, or zone picking, they can also be effectively used for a wide range of operations for different kinds of businesses, such as online retailers and manufacturers.
6 Key Benefits of Pick-to-Light Systems
Now that we have cleared the basics of what eCommerce pick-to-light systems are and what they do, we must delve deeper to understand the importance of these systems for logistics automation and supply chain processes. Here are some of the benefits you should explore:
1. Increased Efficiency
A well-functioning pick-to-light system can expedite your picking process significantly by guiding your staff directly to the right SKUs.
By optimising this step of the process, PTL can minimise the time spent on each item and prevent unnecessary warehouse movement. By guiding staff directly to pick locations, PTL can lift productivity even in well-optimised warehouse layouts.
For example, retailers using pick-to-light systems in warehouses can reduce the pick time per order by a few minutes, boosting the overall output in every shift. Moreover, consider moving the top-moving items closer and grouping them by pick frequency so that you can leverage the PTL system’s speed.
2. Improved Accuracy
eCommerce fulfillment centers that have implemented PTL systems have reported pick accuracy rates up to 99.9% after deployment.
Whether you implement a commercial or custom PTL system, it can quickly reduce mis-picks and improve accuracy. With modern pick-to-light systems, you can ensure higher picking accuracy rates, eliminating picking and packing errors, returns, and customer complaints associated with picking.
The visual cues associated with PTL systems also educe errors caused by misreads, distractions, or manual selection mistakes. The PTL systems enable this by pinpointing the exact description and location of each item on a pick list.
3. Reduced Training Time
Regardless of how advanced or complex a Pick-to-Light system may sound, implementing and using it is actually pretty straightforward. With the help of an intuitive PTL system, you can ensure that your staff becomes much more productive and faster, helping new staff become productive faster without long ramp-up periods.
Even newly hired pickers can easily navigate the lights and simple button-press confirmation to work around language barriers and lengthy onboarding processes. As a result, you can reduce the overall training time required to train your employees.
Pro Tip: You can even provide multilingual support and color-coded displays with your PTL system training so that you can reduce the staff onboarding time for temporary employees even further.
4. Cost Savings
Wireless Pick-to-Light systems can reduce wasted movement and rework in order fulfilment, freeing staff for higher-value tasks.
This improved order picking accuracy can not only minimise rework, but also help you optimise your labor and workflow by informing supervisors of the real-time status.
All in all, you can replace a lot of human effort with the system, saving a lot of costs and resources.
PTL systems generate a significant ROI and famously pay for themselves in just a few months of usage. According to Total Industries, the ROI for PTL systems in high-velocity operations can be achieved in twelve months or less.
5. Enhanced Productivity
When you are dealing with a large-scale logistics system with multiple pickers on the same line, assessing and optimising productivity levels is not optional.
With real-time tracking, enhanced visibility, and simultaneous guidance, your pickers can significantly increase their picks-per-hour. In fact, many operations see higher picks-per-hour and improved throughput after PTL is introduced, particularly in high-velocity zones..
6. Access to Real-time Visibility
Pick-to-Light systems in manufacturing and warehouses can usually provide real-time data on the progress of an order picking process, inventory levels, and employee performance, as long as you integrate them with your Warehouse Management Systems (WMSs).
What’s more, modern PTL systems also provide management dashboards and analytics that help manage and redistribute your workload and identify bottlenecks.
You can also spot any real-time improvement opportunities and improve those areas promptly. For instance, you can utilize PTL analytics to identify the common error points or slow zones to adjust storage or retrain staff based on the data.
When to Use a Pick-to-Light System in Your Warehouse?
Pick-to-light systems are relatively simple to implement and offer several benefits, as we have discovered so far. Now, let us delve deeper into the specific situations in which using a PTL system might be ideal.
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High SKU Counts & Complex Orders: If your warehouses store a large number of items across categories, experience frequent order changes, or varying order sizes, PTL systems can help streamline the process of locating the right SKUs, reducing confusion and optimising operations.
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eCommerce & 3PL Operations: If you offer next-day or express deliveries, making speed and accuracy essential to the operations, PTL can help you process several orders simultaneously, thus managing customer expectations seamlessly.
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High Staff Turnover: If your warehouse environment entails frequent hires, temporary or multi-lingual staff, PTL’s visual prompts can help workers maximise productivity without any additional skills or experience.
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Batch & Multi-Zone Picking: If your warehouse needs to expedite the order fulfilment process of multiple orders and involves collaborative workflows, your PTL system can reduce bottlenecks and increase orders fulfilled per shift across multiple zones and locations.
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Assembly & Kitting: If your company has manufacturing operations that require precise assembly or kitting, PTL systems can help pickers collect exact quantities and item types, thus minimising expensive errors.
How Does a Pick-to-Light System Work?: A 5-Step Process
Now that we have explored the basics of a typical PTL system, the benefits it offers to companies, and the application areas, let us learn about the actionable step-by-step process to follow for using the system effectively.
1. Assign Orders
Once a customer order enters the retailer or company’s warehouse management system (WMS), it is broken down into picking tasks.
However, before that classification, each order is assigned to a picker within the warehouse. The order picker must then collect the items listed in the order from the warehouse.
2. Light Indication
To ensure that the picker can collect all the items in minimal time, the pick locations or the precise location where the item to be picked is placed, will be illuminated with colors or numbers.
Every display associated with the light will pinpoint the item location as well as the quantity to be picked.
3. Operator Guidance
Based on the light indication, the pickers and operators can then navigate to each location, collect the displayed quantity and item, and move through the pick path chosen and led by the system.
Following these paths is important as they are optimised by the system to be the fastest, and in multi-zone operations, they are designed to help operators fulfill separate zones simultaneously.
4. Confirmation
Once the operator collects the item specified in the pick list, they will press the button on the light module to confirm the pick.
Upon confirmation, the lights will go off, and the system will record the status of the transaction as “collected” and leverage real-time tracking that can be provided to the customers.
5. System Integration
All picks carried out by you must integrate into the system that manages your overall shipping operations.
To ensure this happens, integrate your PTL system with your WMS so that the live status of the pick can be updated accurately, inventory levels adjusted, and performance analytics based on these actions can be automatically generated for review and data-driven decision-making.
Concluding Remarks
Pick-to-Light systems are modern and sophisticated systems built to streamline warehouse operations, especially the order picking activity within a typical order fulfillment process.
To use the system to its fullest potential, integrate it with your WMS and provide regular staff training.
When used right, PTL systems can boost your efficiency and accuracy dramatically, and improve the overall performance of your picking and fulfillment processes.
Get a quote from PACK & SEND to get assistance with other parts of your order fulfilment processes, and make the process even smoother and more efficient.