Put to Light
Put To Light System Basic Operations
What is a put to light system and how is it different than a pick to light system? Put to light systems are often mounted on shelving or flow rack, and then individual store order boxes are placed into position over the lights.
In a put to light system containers of items are directed to a put to light packing area where each store or order has an assigned packing location. The operator scans the container barcode on an inbound container (container entering the put to light pack area), and put lights at the locations illuminate and display a quantity. The quantity of the item needed is distributed or put into the shipping container and the light is pressed to confirm the put. The operator repeats putting the same item to all locations that have a light illuminated.
The Exacta put to light software tracks all item quantities put into each shipping container, remaining puts to be completed from the original container as well as any remaining quantity in the original container.
Based on business rules and the put to light device used, operators may also have the ability to indicate short a put to a container or split a put across multiple containers for the store or order. Other features within put to light include closing containers, indication of a full container to close, opening a new container and configurable scan verification as you open a container for the location.
If integrated with the Exacta Warehouse Control Software AOR module, containers of an item (inbound containers) can be dynamically routed to lanes based on workload (Each lane is configured for all stores - each lane identical). Based on how full a lane the inbound container can be routed to a different lane to help balance the work to keep all put operators busy.
Put to Light System Advantages
- Same hardware and software technology as used for pick to light
- Good for a smaller number of orders that are consistent (shipping to your stores each week)
- Option to use a single put to light device for two locations (up and down) common in retail store packing layouts
- If a SKU tends to get distributed to most of the stores, this method of distribution results in a high put density (lots of put opportunities with very little walking), and an efficient transfer of materials
- Put to Light can also be used on the put side of flow rack in consolidation areas
