How many people do you need on the floor to ship the orders you get? Fill in your order volume, how long a pick takes and how much of a shift is really productive, and you get the headcount for the shift, the hours behind it and what those hours cost you in a year.
Average over a normal week, not your peak day. Plan for the average and use temporary staff for peaks, or you pay for idle hands most of the year.
Different products on a typical order. Divide total order lines by total orders over a month; ecommerce is often 1 to 2, wholesale 5 to 15.
From arriving at the location to the item in the box. Time a few picks yourself rather than guessing; guesses are usually optimistic.
What is left after breaks, briefings, waiting and searching. Eighty per cent is a healthy warehouse; below seventy usually means people are hunting for stock.
Paid hours per person per shift, before the productive share above is applied.
Wage plus employer costs, holiday pay and agency margin. Use the number your finance colleague uses, not the gross wage.
Roughly 250 for a five-day operation, 300 for six days. Only used to turn the daily hours into a yearly cost.
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Pickers needed per shift
Rounded up, because half a picker does not turn up.
Total hours of work in a day, before rounding into people.
Orders multiplied by lines per order.
What one picked line costs you in wages.
Those hours across a full working year.
A one-page summary with your figures, the method and what the answer means.
The productive share of a shift is the cheapest headcount there is. Work out what a few points are worth in your operation.
See what those hours are worthIn plain terms: work out how many order lines a day you ship, multiply by the time one line takes, and you have the hours of work. Nobody is productive for a whole shift, so divide by the share of the shift that is real work. Divide the hours by the shift length and round up: you cannot hire two thirds of a person.
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Staffing for your busiest day means paying for idle hours the rest of the year. Most operations do better by levelling the work: releasing orders earlier, picking tomorrow's slow-moving orders today, and using flexible hours for the top ten days.
Going from seventy to eighty per cent productive time is the same as adding a picker for every seven you have, at no extra wage cost. That share is mostly decided by how well work reaches people and how reliable stock locations are.
Not in this calculation. Run it once for picking, then again with your packing time per order and receiving time per pallet if you want a total warehouse headcount.
Run it at the volumes in the tender, then use the cost per order line as your floor price for handling. Anything below that loses money before storage is even counted.
Loading metres, floor area, volume and trailers needed, from your own pallet sizes and stacking height.
Volumetric weight calculatorDimensional weight, real weight and the chargeable weight your carrier actually bills.
Warehouse space calculatorSquare metres for a given number of pallet positions, including aisles and support space.
Loading metres, stock levels and order points are only as good as the stock data behind them. That is what a warehouse management system keeps accurate, every movement, without anyone maintaining a spreadsheet.