RFID pick-path for a distribution warehouse

Replaced a clipboard-and-shout picking process with RFID gates and a handheld that tells pickers where to walk next.

RFID
Embedded C
React
Postgres

A regional distributor was losing hours a day to mis-picks and re-counts. The stock was accurate on paper and wrong on the floor, which is the expensive kind of wrong.

What we did

We instrumented the aisles with RFID gates and built a handheld app that computes a pick path instead of a pick list - the order of the items follows the shape of the building, not the order they were typed into the system.

The interesting problem was not the hardware. It was that the warehouse had three different naming conventions for the same SKU, depending on who had received it. Reconciling that took longer than the firmware.

Outcome

Mis-picks fell by a double-digit percentage within the first month.
Stock counts stopped requiring a Saturday.