10/15/2026
A new piece in Inbound Logistics makes a point worth sitting with: when warehouse leaders want more throughput, they usually look at labor first. But the process itself is often the bigger constraint. Every time an operator stops to verify a location or backtracks after a mis-pick, it costs a few seconds. Multiply that across thousands of picks a day and it adds up fast.
Turnover makes it worse. New hires need time to learn the layout, and during the busiest weeks your experienced people end up training instead of picking. Then the returns wave hits, and the whole operation has to pivot from shipping outbound to inspecting, sorting, and routing inbound product.
The article's advice is refreshingly practical: you don't need a massive automation project. Fix one bottleneck at a time, and lean on tools that give operators the right information at the right moment so the job gets done correctly the first time.
That's the philosophy behind how we run fulfillment at Capitol Warehousing. Our RAMP Warehouse Management System uses barcode scanning at every step, so pallet IDs and locations are verified by the system, not by memory. It's a big reason we can process 1,000+ LTL and small parcel orders a day while handling labeling, repackaging, and returns processing with the same team. When volume spikes or return cycles hit, the process holds up because the process was built to hold up. 📦
Curious to hear from other operators: what's the one bottleneck in your picking process you'd fix first if you could?
Full article from Inbound Logistics: https://bit.ly/4js4Mpd
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