Gavin Clark, Synergy Logistics’ Commercial Director, reports strong interest for ‘Snap-To-Light,’ their latest innovative picking solution

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Synergy Logistics has made its name worldwide as provider of the Snapfulfil SaaS WMS, which delivers Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Warehouse Management Systems to global customers.

Now Gavin Clark, Synergy Logistics’ Commercial Director, reports strong international interest from ecommerce operations and others for ‘Snap-To-Light,’ their latest innovative picking solution, which they launched at Logistics Link South 2014 in February.

‘Snap-To-Light’ has been designed to enhance the power of the Snapfulfil SaaS WMS with a unique ‘Pick to Light’ (PTL) cart, a pedestrian-operated trolley. This not only drives the pickers on the shortest walk sequence, picking multiple orders in a single pass, but through the use of a robust lighting harness, indicates to the picker which orders, totes, cartons and other items need to be picked into, lowering the number of visits to a pick face, but also increasing accuracy.

Pick to Light technology is often used by the largest and busiest warehouses, but the costs of acquisition and ownership have previously been barriers to access for smaller businesses. In short, says Gavin Clark, Synergy Logistics’ Commercial Director, the ROI just didn’t stack up before. However, as Snapfulfil have pioneered the ‘No Capex’ business model for their powerful WMS, requiring no up-front funds or long term financial commitments, they have taken this approach with their Pick to Light Cart ‘Snap-To-Light’’, allowing small to medium sized businesses access to this powerful picking solution with only a simple monthly subscription payment.

Customer order fulfilment is the lifeblood of any busy warehouse operation, and where these orders are mainly items, often a split between single items and multiple line orders, the physical process of picking these orders in a streamlined and efficient way without a WMS has always been a real challenge.

Synergy looked at the needs of the picking teams and has taken some bold design steps to provide the easiest to use system possible. ‘Snap-To-Light’ enables picking multiple orders at one time, driving efficiency and time saving. Variable picking totes or shipping cartons are utilised for variable order sizes, all controlled by the WMS based on each shipment’s dimensions/volume. Different sized carts can be used, for the ‘heavyweight’ shippers.

The ‘Snap-To-Light’ harness can be retrofitted to existing carts, so existing investment can be utilised. Lightweight and rapid charge Lithium Ion battery technology is used, not the heavy Lead-Acid power packs from the automotive industry often used in more traditional carts. Pick and Pass or Multi Zone picking functions allow the use of multiple carts to pick from different areas of the warehouse, all with full visibility and control at each stage.

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Synergy unveiled the ‘Snap-To-Light’ here at Logistics Link South 2014 and at the Internet Retail exhibition, generating strong interest from prospective Snapfulfil users, and people wanting better item picking solutions. Synergy also exhibited the ‘Snap-To-Light’ at Modex, Atlanta to a very positive response, with follow-up calls showing people remember the carts once they have seen them.

“Because of our speed-to-value and low cost of ownership, more companies are choosing Snapfulfil WMS to support strategic distribution initiatives like ecommerce,” said Gavin Clark, Synergy Logistics’ Commercial Director: “These types of business not only require a highly adaptable WMS to support high-volume, but they can now add the PTL cart to allow ‘hands free’ picking and highly visible stock deposits into picking cartons/totes quickly and cost effectively. Having a WMS that will drive operatives around the warehouse in the most efficient sequence has always been the main goal, but the physical process of picking the important sales items was often ignored as barcode scanners were essential to increase accuracy. With ‘Snap-To-Light’ there is no longer a trade-off between shipment accuracy and a ‘hands free’ picking environment.”

Synergy Logistics will be trialling the STL carts with a pilot group of existing clients, before rolling them out to their wider international customer base.

“This is a very exciting proposition all round,” says Gavin Clark. “The technology we developed to create the ‘STL’ will also allow us to connect the information from the carts to managers and others in the business world with low cost devices, and give them a more mobile working life.”

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