subject: Pick and Pack Services: A Blessing [print this page] Pick and Pack Services: A Blessing Pick and Pack Services: A Blessing
The task of filling orders in a warehouse or any other product shipping environment requires the skilled and timely services of employees who would be able to fulfill the inventory requests. This complete process is known as the "pick and pack" services, and it entails a combination of accuracy in count, familiarity with the products and timely delivery.
Basic Requirements
It is usually recorded in most cases that, a high school diploma or GED equivalent is required for getting a job with the pick and pack services. Most employers would be satisfied if this is the extent of a person's educational background, as long as a prospective employee has some relevant experience in shipping or order fulfillment environment. Otherwise, some on-the-job training would be required to teach the employee the pros and cons of filling a service order properly.
Related Job Experience
This aspect refers to any previous experience a person might have in filling orders and packaging products for dispersal, either in a bulk order warehouse that deals in wholesale distribution, or in shipping and receiving department. A few examples of this type of experience could include: work in an automotive parts warehouse as order filler, work in a small confection store filling boxes with candy products, or work for a paper supply company filling empty cases with reams of printer paper.
General Job Description
The basic job description for a pick and pack services agent position is largely dependant on an outlined routine of order fulfillment which assumes a familiarity with the products. The routine is consisting of several steps. They are:
Pulling the listed items off the shelf.
Sorting out the items and re-counting them to make sure that all the products on the order request are ready to be packed.
Carrying out a final inspection in order to ensure quality control is next.
This is followed up by packing the shipping container, which also includes filling up all voids for a secure shipment.
In a number of operations, the employee is responsible for putting a label and addressing the container, also transporting them to the staging area of the shipping department.
More Involved Jobs
Some companies have extremely precise methods of order fulfillment which require other skills besides proper counting and packaging. This holds true especially for operations that handle technical products. One such example would be a position with a medical supply company. The pick and pack services' employee would be required not only to be accurate in their count, but also in verifying the status of the items which are being packed. A number of medical supplies are monitored as per their date of manufacture and the pick and pack employee would have to be able to verify this information by checking the expiry dates, rotation cycles, and lot numbers so as to avoid sending out a potentially useless or even hazardous product.
Compensation
As per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for order filler (pick and pack) was around $28,580 in 2008, which translated to about $13.50 an hour. This might be affected by other factors, such as the size of the company, or other compensation features like any profit-sharing or pension plans that the employer offers, health insurances and other bonuses.
