Pick to Pack Process
A simple way to see where your process actually helps — or gets in the way
Written By: David Carneal – Digital Efficiency Consulting Group (DECG)
If you and I stood at your pick ticket printer for a day, we’d learn a lot about your business. Who grabs the tickets first? What do they do next? How often do they have to stop and ask a question before they can move? Mapping that journey from print to shipment is one of the fastest ways to see where your process quietly leaks time, money, and sanity.
Step 1: Follow one ticket all the way through
Pick a typical order — not the nightmare, not the unicorn, just an everyday ticket. Follow it from the moment it prints until the box is sealed and staged. Write down every handoff, every place it waits, and every time someone has to stop to clarify something. No judgment, no speeches. We’re just documenting reality.
Step 2: Ask three simple questions at each step
- Is it clear who owns the ticket right now?
- Is it obvious what “done” looks like at this step?
- What slows you down here — missing info, missing material, or unclear priority?
When you ask those questions with the people doing the work, patterns pop out quickly. You’ll see steps that add no value, approvals that don’t prevent anything, and spots where material or information is always missing. That’s where the real improvement opportunities live.
Step 3: Sketch a cleaner version together
Once the current path is clear, bring the team together and sketch the simplest possible version of the process on a whiteboard. Keep the changes small and practical: combine steps, remove duplicate checks, clarify who owns what. The goal isn’t a glossy flowchart for the wall — it’s a path your team believes in and can follow tomorrow morning.
You don’t have to redesign the entire plant. Start by cleaning up the flow for one product family or one key customer. Prove it works, then copy the pattern where it makes sense. That’s how small process improvements turn into real operational change.