Why Warehouse Picking Optimization and the Last Mile Go Hand in Hand

One of the trends that seems to crop up on predictions lists year after year is the increasing automation of warehouses and distribution—usually via robots or co-bots, and increasingly involving the use of AI.

But let’s be real: how many logistics organizations out there right now would be able to capitalize on robotics or other new forms of automation if they were magically made available right now?

The simple answer is that many or most warehouse teams wouldn’t be in a position to leverage a turnkey solution for automating what goes within the four walls. Why? Because processes aren't standardized or aren’t digitized, meaning that there’s no single source of truth for everything.

This is especially true when it comes to handoff to the next phase of the logistics process, which is generally the last mile (also known as the final mile). If your delivery and service teams don’t have connectivity and visibility with warehouse loaders and warehouse operations more generally, then all of the fancy optimization you roll out for naught.   

What Is Warehouse Picking Optimization?

Let’s take a quick step back and discuss the ins and outs of warehouse picking optimization. This can mean different things to different people, but generally speaking it will refer to leveraging technology to make sure that warehouse associates are empowered to get product picked, picked, staged, and loaded into trucks as quickly as possible. 

This can involve optimizing picking routes—i.e. finding the shortest route for an associate to take to pick all the relevant items based on their locations in the warehouse—especially in larger warehouses and in situations where you’re using forklifts or loaders.

Unlike delivery route optimization, you can generally figure these routes out with a fairly simple algorithm. The difficult part is integrating that routing process into larger workflows for logistics management in general and warehouse management in particular.

This results in a few potential hurdles that come with warehouse picking optimization that you’ll need to overcome. For instance:

• Ensuring real-time item location data even as orders are picked and packed 
• Real-time information about which orders are still being picked vs. which have already been picked
• Associating products, routes, and orders with one another in a way that’s clear to all stakeholders
• Maintaining a complete chain of custody that ensures you always know the locations of items in transit. This is crucial at each node of the supply chain: first mile, middle mile, last mile, and all of the warehouse operations in between .

How Does Warehouse Picking Impact Last Mile Logistics?

If these concerns apply to you, there’s a good chance that you can get picking optimization capabilities from your warehouse management solution—and that’s a great starting place when it comes to leveling up your warehouse management capabilities. 

But it’s also crucial to take the impulse to optimize one step farther—to connected processes like last mile delivery and logistics. 

At first glance, it might look like that’s strictly within the remit of the warehouse picking optimization process. But, in point of fact, they share something important: each of these includes a chain of custody that has to connect up to a complete, standardized audit trail for the entire logistics and supply chain management process. 

That means that optimizing your warehouse picking in such a way that you’re not automatically ensuring a continuous chain of custody means that you’re not really optimizing it at all. Or, at best, you’re optimizing it only partially, because you won’t have true end-to-end visibility, which means slower, less efficient issue resolution and lower quality data and insights. 

Conversely, when your warehouse teams are enabled to capture proof of picking and loading in a way that is automatically connected with your last mile delivery system, you set yourself up to improve visibility. This results in a smooth handoff from one process to the next, meaning that you can boost efficiency at the very outset of the last mile delivery process. This is a recipe for reduced costs, decreased manual data entry effort, and—all the way downstream—happier customers.

3 Best Practices for Creating Connected Logistics Processes

So how do you achieve the kind of digital harmony between last mile logistics and warehouse picking optimization that we’ve been describing? It starts with a few key steps and best practices:

1. Choose solutions that play nicely with one another

Another way to look at this piece is, if you’ve already got a solution implemented for one area or the other, make sure the next solution you adopt plays nicely with the existing one. But if you’re starting from scratch, you should be able to find two solutions that are easy to implement and easy to connect with other solutions in the logistics realm—whether that’s via API or customized integrations. 

This is a huge piece of the puzzle for both warehouse optimization and last mile management. The more effectively you can ensure easy transfer of data between the two functional areas, the more effectively you can ensure visibility. 

2. Give warehouse personnel the right technology

You have to take a broad view of the capabilities you need in your warehouse and last mile solutions—but one particular area to home in on is the capabilities that your warehouse teams are going to have access to. 

Here, you’ll want to ensure that everyone has access to a mobile app that offers a few capabilities:

• Barcode scanning
• Pallet scanning
• Photos for documentation 
• Customizable workflows and instructions
• Messaging capabilities for staying connected with back-office teams

Crucially, you want to be absolutely certain that if your warehouse teams are loading items onto trucks that different teams of drivers will take out, that they can document that in a way that’s instantly reflected in the last mile delivery management system. By ensuring that you have that capability, you make certain of total visibility and connectivity between teams at a crucial junction where the two processes meet. 

3. Leverage cloud technology from a trusted provider

Your needs are certain to change over time—so your technology should do the same. That’s why we strongly recommend avoiding any new on-prem technology deployments at this point. 

Why? Because with an on-premise deployment, there’s no onus on the software provider to make updates—which means that as the rest of your tech stack evolves to meet changing needs you will have to jerry-rig solutions to keep your older solutions connected. 

With a cloud-based software solution, the situation is reversed. The provider will handle updates, new releases, bug fixes, etc. so that you can focus on your core business while they ensure that your capabilities keep pace with your needs. 

The Way Forward for Last Mile and Warehouse Optimization

The dream is to find a technology provider who will work with you in a spirit of partnership, so that changes in your business help guide the roadmap for further enhancements. If you’re finding that customer expectations are changing, you want to work with a solution provider who will take that into account and roll out new customer experience capabilities. 

In this way, by choosing the right provider you also choose a future-proof model of logistics management—one that includes integrated warehouse picking optimization, last mile logistics management, and other up- and downstream processes. In a world of increasing complexity and mounting cost pressures, there’s never been a more perfect time to invest in connected logistics technology that can boost visibility and help you optimize costs, even in the liminal spaces between your different supply chain functions.