Manual picking, a recognised cost centre
TAsk any operations manager where costs pile up the fastest and picking is usually top of the list. It's long been recognised as labour-intensive and slow to change, still built at many sites on the same logic used for decades: fixed sequences, serpentine routes, first-in-first-out. However, consumer expectations are high and customer loyalty is low.
As labour costs rise and volumes grow, the gap between traditional picking methods and what a modern warehouse needs is widening. This is exactly what makes picking a sensible place to start looking at process improvement. It's usually the biggest single driver of labour cost, and the process most operations already understand well enough to know where it's falling short.
The software impact
Rather than ripping out infrastructure or forcing a full automation overhaul, intelligent picking software layers on top of what's already there, applying spatial batching, AI-driven route sequencing and dynamic task allocation to existing warehouse management systems. It's a shift from static, rules-based picking logic to something that adapts in real time to order profiles, stock locations and workforce availability.
The benefits are seen throughout the operation. Better-sequenced, better-batched picking flows directly into packing and despatch: fewer errors to correct, steadier throughput, and carrier deadlines that are easier to hit. Optimising picking well is often the fastest route to lifting performance across the whole outbound process.
At Breathe Technologies, this is the problem Pick IQ was built to solve. Rather than replacing the WMS platforms our customers already run, it connects via API and sits above them as an intelligent optimisation layer, receiving pick tasks, applying spatial batching and AI-driven sequencing, and returning fully optimised pick lists for native execution. It's a connected, data-led approach to picking, built on infrastructure customers already own, and it reflects how we approach every integration: understanding where our customers are losing time, labour and margin, then designing and integrating the right solution around that.
“There's significant productivity improvements to unlock in picking simply by taking a different approach and that's exactly where a software-only layer like Pick IQ comes in," says Philip Rowlands, Software Development Director at Breathe Technologies.
“Because the intelligence sits above the WMS rather than inside it, implementation is low risk, the hands-on process doesn't change for pickers, but the results do. We've seen it work equally well on established eCommerce and retail operations and on greenfield sites, with customers able to quantify the impact through our reporting from day one.”
We've seen this at Mountain Warehouse, where Pick IQ has lifted picking productivity across retail and eCommerce operations, holding performance steady through everyday demand and seasonal peaks.