Saving One Minute per Order: A Digigate Success Story

Modern systems create modern problems

In modern warehouses, employees are guided through every step of the process by the WMS. They are told where to go, how many items to take, in which carton to place it in etc.

The system communicates with the employee by showing them messages on their screen or guiding them by voice. But how does the employee communicate with the WMS, and is it secretly costing you millions?

A real-life example:

In one of the biggest e-commerce distribution centres in the Czech Republic managed by a famous 3PL, each picking mission starts with collecting cartons. They are working under the “pick-and-pack” process where orders are picked directly into the cartons that will end up on the end-customer’s doorstep. Therefore, it is quite important that no mistake be made so double-checks are primordial:

1. The WMS tells the operator how many cartons and which size cartons are required to accomplish the picking mission.
2. The operator selects and arranges up to 35 empty cartons on his picking trolley.
3. Using his RF scanner, the operator scans each unique carton ID to tell the system which exact cartons he has taken.
4. The system associates an order to each carton and the picking can start.4

This manual "scan-to-confirm" step takes an average of one minute per trolley. Only after the final barcode is captured and validated in the WMScan the picking mission officially begin.

This distribution centre handles 28,000 orders per day. A solution was required that could communicate the information to the IT system without slowing the operator down.

The Solution: Automatic scanning with Digigate

To eliminate this pre-picking bottleneck, Digilo implemented Digigate at the facility, an autonomous scanning gate solution tailored specifically for high-volume logistics environments. The system officially went live in March this year.

A custom-configured scanning tunnel was installed at a strategic transit point leading into the picking aisles. The gate is equipped with three high-speed vision cameras specifically engineered for barcode scanning.

With Digigate:

• The warehouse operator assembles the empty cartons exactly as before.
• Instead of stopping at a space-constrained staging area, the operator drives the EPT directly through the scanning gate at full speed.
• As the trolley moves through the gate, the cameras instantly capture and decode every single barcode no matter where it is on the trolley.
• The codes are filtered and instantly transmitted to the WMS.
• The Operator is guided to the first picking location.

The operator never stops the EPT, never dismounts, and never touches a handheld RF scanner. Digital validation occurs passively in the background while the physical movement remains continuous.

Real Results: Compounding Minutes into Throughput

The deployment yielded immediate, measurable performance improvements:

• Time Saved per Mission: Eliminating the stopping, dismounting, and manual scanning steps saves approximately one full minute per picking mission.
• Seamless WMS Integration: Digigate communicates directly with the WMS via automated protocols, ensuring instantaneous data transfer without requiring any modifications to the core warehouse layout or picking paths.
• Rapid Return on Investment: Saving one minute per trip across a large fleet of EPTs quickly compounds. The aggregate labour savings allowed the operation to achieve a remarkably fast ROI.

Rethinking Scanning

If your warehouse throughput is limited by the speed at which operators can point handheld scanners at boxes, your operation is losing valuable time.

The question for logistics leadership is no longer whether your manual scanning process works, but rather how much you are sacrificing by continuing to rely on it.

To learn how Digigate can automate scanning workflows in your facility, visit our solution catalog at www.digilo.net or schedule a technical consultation with our engineering team.

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