How to increase picking speed and free up time in the warehouse

When you look at automatic picking, it’s rarely because your team is picking “wrong.” It’s because the warehouse has changed. More orders, more SKUs, and more rush tasks mean that walking, searching, and waiting take up more time than the picking itself.

If you want to scale without expanding your floor space or hiring your way out of the problem, you need to cut motion out of the process. That’s exactly what Effimat 4 is built for. It brings the goods to the operator and makes the picking flow faster, more stable, and easier to manage during peak periods.

Why picking gets slower as you grow

In a busy operation, picking rarely slows down because of one big thing. It slows down because of many small things. Pickers walk longer routes because locations spread out. They get interrupted by replenishment because the forward picking area can’t keep up. And they wait because more people are working in the same zones.

That means you can have high activity and still get fewer lines out of the day. The pace feels high, but output levels off.

That’s why it helps to think like this: if you can remove 30–60 seconds of walking and “search time” from each order, you can scale without pushing people harder. That’s where automatic picking makes sense as a real shift in the way work gets done.

Effimat 4 in practice: what makes it different?

Effimat 4 is a goods-to-person picking system with intelligent box mover technology. It can work both vertically and horizontally, which means it can present up to five different standard boxes in each work cycle, no matter where the boxes are located in the tower. That’s an important difference because it reduces the number of cycles and waiting time when an order has many lines.

EFFIMAT also states a capacity of up to 320 boxes per hour. The numbers always depend on your order profile, your workflows, and your items, but they show the potential when walking and searching are removed from picking. Effimat 4 is also described as at least three times more efficient than traditional vertical lift modules, precisely because the picking cycle becomes shorter and more flexible.

If you also want to free up floor space, that’s part of the package too. In some setups, Effimat 4 can reduce footprint by up to 75% compared with manual shelving. That makes it realistic to increase capacity without the warehouse “spreading out” and creating longer routes.

What you need in place before Effimat 4 delivers its full potential

Effimat 4 can significantly increase picking speed, but it performs best when you connect it to a simple, consistent operation. You don’t need a perfect warehouse. You just need control of the few things that otherwise steal pace.

1) Clear replenishment rules

A fast picking flow breaks down if the operator is constantly missing items. That’s why replenishment should have fixed routines, clear min/max levels, and a simple way to handle “critically low” situations.

2) Clean location and item data

Automation amplifies your data errors. If item names, units, or location logic are unclear, you get more stops and more checking work. When data is clean, picking becomes calm and predictable.

3) A picking process that fits your order mix

If you often pick many lines per order, Effimat 4 makes even more sense because it can present more boxes per cycle. If you have many small orders, the gain is still strong because the pace becomes more stable and you avoid wasted time between lines.

Scaling with Effimat 4: how to keep complexity under control

The best scaling doesn’t feel like a huge project. It feels like a controlled increase in capacity, where you add more when you need it.

A simple way to think about it is:

• Start with one picking point and define which item types go into the system first.

• Stabilize the flow with clear replenishment and consistent picking rules.

• Expand using the same logic as volume grows, instead of building new aisles and longer routes.

If you also have a strong focus on using space as efficiently as possible, it can make sense to combine Effimat 4 with E/Compact in a more connected flow, where storage and order preparation can run more continuously.

Where does E/Classic fit if you still want to start simple?

If your biggest challenge is mainly space, E/Classic can be a good first step because it gives you compact vertical storage and more controlled picking in a smaller footprint. It’s often a good way to get started, especially if you want to make improvements in stages.

But when your goal is to increase picking speed to a level that can keep up with growth, Effimat 4 is typically the solution that sets the direction. It makes scaling easier because it removes the part of the work you almost never fully solve: walking, searching, and waiting.

Automatic picking: what you actually get from Effimat 4

With automatic picking in the form of Effimat 4, you get a picking flow that’s faster and more stable because goods are presented to the operator in short cycles. You reduce walking and congestion, you lower errors by making the process more consistent, and you use vertical space so the footprint doesn’t grow at the same pace as volume.

If you want a realistic assessment of what Effimat 4 could mean for your picking speed, staffing, and space, take the next step at a calm pace.