Order processing
Order processing is a key element of Order fulfillment

Order fulfillment

Order fulfillment is in the most general sense the complete process from point of sales inquiry to delivery of a product to the customer...

. Order processing operations or facilities are commonly called "distribution center

Distribution center

A distribution center for a set of products is a warehouse or other specialized building, often with refrigeration or air conditioning, which is stocked with products to be redistributed to retailers, to wholesalers, or directly to consumers. A distribution center is a principal part, the order...

s". "Order processing" is the term generally used to describe the process or the work flow associated with the picking, packing and delivery of the packed item(s) to a shipping carrier. The specific "order fulfillment process" or the operational procedures of distribution centers are determined by many factors. Each distribution center has its own unique requirements or priorities. There is no "one size fits all" process that universally provides the most efficient operation. Some of the factors that determine the specific process flow of a distribution center are:

• The nature of the shipped product - shipping eggs and shipping shirts can require differing fulfillment processes
• The nature of the orders - the number of differing items and quantities of each item in orders
• The nature of the shipping packaging - cases, totes, envelopes, pallets can create process variations
• Shipping costs - consolidation of orders, shipping pre-sort can change processing operations
• Availability and cost and productivity of workforce - can create trade-off decisions in automation and manual processing operations
• Timeliness of shipment windows - when shipments need to be completed based on carriers can create processing variations
• Availability of capital expenditure dollars - influence on manual verses automated process decisions and longer term benefits
• Value of product shipped - the ratio of the value of the shipped product and the order fulfillment cost
• Seasonality variations in outbound volume - amount and duration of seasonal peaks and valleys of outbound volume
• Predictability of future volume, product and order profiles -
• Predictability of distribution network - whether or not the network itself is going to change

This list is only a small sample of factors that influence the choice of a distribution centers operational procedures. Because each factor has varying importance in each organization the net effect is that each organization has unique processing requirements.

The effect of Globalization

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

 has immense impacts on much of the order fulfillment but its impact is felt most in transportation and distribution.

SKU or Stock-keeping unit

Multi SKU Orders - single SKU Orders

Small volume distribution

Minimizing shipping costs

Case picking vs item or each picking

Order processing methodologies

Single item picking

Pick to order

Batch pick to order

Batch pick and sort to order

Wave Picking

Waveless picking

Information management systems in distribution

Sorting machines in distribution