SOP & Station Layout

The first principle of speed is one fewer step and one fewer decision. Here is a copy-and-paste SOP, station layouts and zero-cost organisation.

The ideal 9-step sequence

Standard motions from scan to staging, and which steps can be batched — and which never can.

Read →Station

U / L / straight-line layouts

Which layout fits your volume and product, and how to make the flow a one-way river.

Read →Zero cost

The 60cm reach zone & 5S

Bring every supply into reach for ~15–25% more speed with no capital spend.

Read →Diagnostic

How to time one order

Split the time into four buckets; the biggest one is your real problem.

The three principles that matter most

One

Remove walking before anything else

Every trip costs 15–40 s; discipline won’t fix it — layout will.

Two

Turn decisions into lookups

Converge to 3–4 boxes with a written rule; pre-cut fill; cut on-the-spot judgement.

Three

Batch by task

Repeat one step across the batch; never batch the address check.

Red lines

Keep four quality checks

Address, shake test, item check, payment confirmation — always.

Industry benchmarks: orders per hour by product type

Use these to tell whether you are at beginner, competent or expert level, and to set a target. Packing-only reference ranges: single-item and multi-item bands are published; fragile and heavy rows are estimates (see note).

Order type	Beginner	Competent	Expert
Single-item, uniform	20–30	40–60	60–80
Multi-item, mixed	10–20	25–40	40–55
Fragile (double-box)*	8–15	15–25	25–35
Heavy / oversized (>30 lb)*	5–10	10–18	18–25

Note: * Fragile and heavy rows are extrapolated experience bands (no direct published figure). Single-item and multi-item rows come from published industry benchmarks (e.g. Nventory: 40–60 single-item and 25–40 multi-item; CXTMS: ~30–80 packs/hour). Full sources & method →

Apply these principles to your process

The optimizer sequences your steps and costs them automatically.

Run the optimizer