Warehousing operations are under sustained pressure. Customer expectations continue to rise, with faster delivery times, higher accuracy and seamless returns now considered standard. At the same time, many facilities still operate with manual processes, making it increasingly difficult to keep pace with rising order volumes, labour shortages and growing operational complexity.

For many ANZ businesses operating manual warehouses, additional pressures come from labour shortages and rising labour costs, which are impacting operations, customer service levels and squeezing margins. While land scarcity and high building costs are forcing businesses to extract more value from existing facilities rather than expanding their footprint.

Combine these pressures with tighter safety and regulatory requirements, as well as the need to remain resilient in the face of disruption, and it becomes clear why warehouse productivity has become such a critical focus. For manual or partially automated warehouses, order picking is where the greatest opportunity exists to lift productivity.

In a typical predominantly manual distribution centre (DC), picking is the single most labour-intensive activity. In many operations, up to 65% of warehouse staff are involved in picking tasks, particularly item or eaches picking. Yet despite the level of effort involved, traditional manual picking processes are inherently inefficient.

Studies of manual warehouse operations show that up to 70% of a picker’s time can be spent travelling between locations rather than actually picking product. This travel time adds a significant hidden cost, contributing to lower productivity, increased fatigue and higher error rates. As order volumes grow and order profiles fragment, these inefficiencies are magnified.

Improving picking performance therefore offers one of the most powerful strategies for lifting productivity in manual warehouse operations while reducing reliance on labour.

Voice-directed warehousing solutions have become a proven way to improve picking productivity, accuracy and flexibility in manual warehouse environments. These systems guide operators through tasks using spoken instructions delivered via a lightweight rugged headset, directing them to locations, quantities and destinations. Pickers confirm actions verbally, allowing the system to validate each step in real time.

Voice-directed picking can increase productivity by up to 45% for item picking and up to 25% for case picking, while delivering accuracy rates of 99.99% or higher. Training times are typically reduced by around 50%, making voice particularly valuable in labour-constrained environments where onboarding speed matters.

In operations where workforce turnover can be high and seasonal peaks are common, voice systems also provide the flexibility to redeploy staff quickly without sacrificing performance.

In Australia, a voice-directed picking solution helped food distributor Tasty Fresh transition from manual, paper-based processes to a more efficient operation, delivering a 35% productivity improvement and reducing errors across picking and stocktaking.

An additional development of voice picking pairs audio instructions with visual feedback through a small display terminal. This allows pickers to see the pick location, quantity and even product images, along with guidance on optimal pallet builds.

By combining audio and visual cues, these systems further improve accuracy and productivity while supporting more compact and stable pallet builds. This enables smoother downstream handling, fewer errors and more consistent performance across shifts.

Vision picking systems take hands-free operation a step further by using wearable smart glasses with a heads-up display. These systems visually direct operators to pick locations and provide confirmation through images, quantities and check digits, ensuring the correct product is selected every time.

Vision solutions can operate independently or in tandem with voice systems, making them well suited to environments where visual verification is critical or where operators benefit from an additional layer of confirmation. As with voice, the hands-free nature of vision systems improves ergonomics and reduces cognitive load on workers.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) can be deployed incrementally and expanded as demand evolves, making them well suited to manual warehouses seeking productivity gains without committing to large-scale infrastructure changes.

AMR picking systems are a type of goods-to-person (GTP) solutions, which fundamentally change the picking model by eliminating operator travel altogether. Instead of people walking to product, automated systems deliver product directly to the picker.

By transporting shelves, totes or goods directly to operators, AMRs reduce travel time, improve accuracy and enable faster fulfilment while supporting increasingly complex order profiles.

Shelf-to-picker AMR systems deliver entire shelving units to operators, eliminating walking time and significantly improving picking productivity, often doubling manual cart-based rates. They are well suited to smaller fulfilment environments or operations with varied inventory types, including small items, cartons and hanging garments, and additional units can be introduced as volumes grow.

Bin-to-picker AMR systems extend these benefits by using automated storage towers and tote movers to deliver items directly to pick stations. With pick rates of up to 500 order lines per hour and storage heights reaching 12 metres, these systems deliver substantial productivity gains alongside high storage density and efficient use of vertical space. Their modular design enables throughput to increase as demand rises, helping operations improve speed and accuracy while maintaining the responsiveness required in modern fulfilment environments.

Radial Europe deployed 299 bin-to-picker and tote transport AMRs alongside 45 goods-to-person stations, transforming previously manual processes into a flexible automated system that improves efficiency and enables faster response to fluctuating eCommerce order volumes.

Additional GTP solutions include AutoStore™ and Multishuttle-based systems. It’s important to evaluate which solution is the right for a particular operation and application.

AutoStore is a GTP system designed to increase capacity and picking efficiency within a compact footprint. Items are stored in bins stacked within a dense cube, while robots travel across the grid to retrieve products and deliver them to operators at pick stations, eliminating travel time and streamlining fulfilment.

The cube-based design provides ultra-high storage density for small items and can reduce space requirements by up to 25% compared with conventional shelving. Its modular structure, typically up to six metres high, allows installation within existing facilities, around building columns or in constrained areas, with the flexibility to expand as demand grows.

By delivering goods directly to operators, AutoStore can lift picking productivity by 300 to 500% while maintaining accuracy levels above 99.99%. For operations managing expanding SKU ranges and rising eCommerce volumes, it offers a scalable way to boost throughput without increasing footprint.

At WesTrac’s Tomago facility in New South Wales, an AutoStore system enabled the business to store more spare parts in a smaller footprint, fulfil orders 30% faster with existing headcount, and pick urgent orders in minutes rather than hours.

Dematic’s Multishuttle GTP systems combine ergonomically designed pick stations with shuttle-based storage and retrieval, delivering items in sequence directly to operators. Multiple shuttles operate within each aisle to store and retrieve totes or cartons, enabling a continuous flow of goods to pick stations and supporting some of the highest throughput rates available in automated fulfilment.

Designed for speed and scalability, Multishuttle systems can achieve pick rates exceeding 600 order lines per hour per station, significantly increasing productivity while reducing manual handling and travel time. Dematic’s inter-aisle transfer technology allows products to be routed to any pick station, minimising conveyor requirements and reducing overall system footprint.

With full headroom utilisation and flexible system expansion, Multishuttle solutions are well suited to operations managing high volumes, large SKU ranges and rapid order cycles, helping maximise warehouse cube utilisation while supporting future growth.

At AS Colour’s Auckland distribution centre, a Multishuttle GTP system replaced manual shelf picking with high-density automated storage and sequenced fulfilment. This boosted throughput per worker by 344%, improving accuracy, reducing warehouse footprint by 30% and increasing storage capacity by 35% to support faster, more sustainable growth.

Pallet transport is a critical and often under-optimised element of warehouse performance. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) can manage pallet movements between receiving, storage, production and dispatch, creating a safer and more consistent flow of goods while reducing reliance on manual handling.

In addition to labour efficiency, AGVs improve safety and asset protection. Controlled navigation reduces the risk of collisions, product damage and racking impacts, while integrated tracking provides real-time visibility of pallet movements, strengthening inventory accuracy and operational control.

Operating continuously, including in chilled and freezer environments, AGVs can integrate with racking systems, block stacking zones and production workflows. As part of a broader optimisation strategy, they support smoother material flow, better infrastructure utilisation and more resilient, data-driven operations.

Improving picking productivity does not require an immediate leap to full automation. For many predominantly manual warehouses, measurable gains can come from introducing technologies incrementally. This might begin with voice or vision systems that improve accuracy and reduce travel time, before layering in goods-to-person or robotics solutions as volumes grow and operational needs evolve.

This staged approach allows organisations to balance investment with operational priorities while building resilience and flexibility into their facilities. In a market challenged by labour constraints, rising customer expectations and ongoing disruption, the ability to improve productivity without dramatically changing the warehouse footprint is increasingly valuable.

For manual warehouses, order picking remains the single biggest opportunity to lift productivity. By focusing on practical technologies that reduce travel time, improve accuracy and support workers more effectively, businesses can unlock faster, more efficient and more resilient operations without fundamentally redesigning their warehouse.

You can learn more from Dematic’s ebook.