When Warehouse Volumes Outgrow Spreadsheet-Driven Picking

Regional distributors can absorb rising order volumes for only so long before manual warehouse processes begin to break down. The first signs are often not dramatic system failures, but longer picking routes, inconsistent inventory information, additional supervisory work and growing dependence on spreadsheets to coordinate inbound and outbound activity.

The problem is particularly acute for plumbing, HVAC and industrial distributors. Their warehouses may carry products that vary considerably in size, handling requirements and order frequency, while customers expect contractors to receive the correct parts without delays. When volumes rise, pickers, warehouse supervisors, purchasing teams and sales staff all suffer from the same information gaps, but experience them differently.

Pickers spend more time locating products or resolving discrepancies. Supervisors must redistribute labor while protecting dispatch deadlines. Purchasing teams lose confidence in inventory availability, and sales personnel may struggle to give customers reliable information. Contractors ultimately bear the consequences when an incomplete or delayed order interrupts work at a job site.

Research illustrates why picking performance has such a broad operational impact. An academic review published in the European Journal of Operational Research estimated that order picking can represent as much as 55% of total warehouse operating expense. Separately, the 2025 MHI and Deloitte Annual Industry Report identified workforce and talent shortages as a highly impactful supply-chain trend among 35% of surveyed professionals.

Growth Exposes Process Weaknesses

This was the operational challenge facing Hirsch Pipe & Supply, a Southern California distributor with 30 locations. Distribution volumes across its network had more than doubled, placing pressure on processes that included manual and spreadsheet-based work.

Adding employees could have provided temporary capacity, but it would not necessarily have corrected the underlying problem. If workers continue to depend on fragmented information and inefficient travel routes, a larger team can increase coordination requirements without producing a proportional improvement in throughput.

Hirsch instead implemented the Latitude warehouse management system from PathGuide Technologies. The objective was to coordinate warehouse activity more effectively while maintaining integration with the distributor’s existing enterprise resource planning environment.

The implementation included zone-based picking, which assigns workers to defined sections of a facility instead of requiring each picker to travel throughout the warehouse. In an operation containing varied product categories, this can reduce travel and allow employees to develop familiarity with the inventory in their assigned areas.

Hirsch reported a 25% improvement in picking efficiency following the implementation. The company also reduced manual spreadsheet activity and made inbound and operational information more accessible across its warehouse, purchasing and sales functions.

Efficiency Can Shift the Bottleneck

After a WMS improves picking speed, the bottleneck can move to consolidation, packing and shipping. In zone-based picking, different parts of the same order may be collected simultaneously and then brought together at a single point. If downstream capacity and synchronization are not adjusted to the new pace, queues form, orders wait for items from other zones and loading is delayed. A local 25% improvement in picking can therefore increase downstream pressure without reducing total order-cycle time.

MHI’s Solutions Community described the operational consequence in earlier guidance on downstream bottlenecks: “Fallout from downstream bottlenecks includes slowdowns at the pack station as orders pile up. If materials are held up at the SLAM line, it slows down flow to carriers.”

Warehouse managers therefore need to evaluate more than the headline picking rate. Order accuracy, overtime, replenishment delays, consolidation queues, dock congestion and the time required to complete an entire order are necessary to determine whether the improvement extends across the operation.

The 25% figure disclosed by Hirsch provides evidence of progress, but the company did not release the original picking rate, implementation cost, order-accuracy results or measurement period. Without those details, the full return on the investment cannot be independently assessed.

Integration Determines Whether Gains Can Scale

The project nevertheless shows how distributors can respond when growth begins to overwhelm processes developed for a smaller operation. The relevant question is not simply whether a WMS can accelerate individual tasks, but whether it can create a shared operational picture without forcing the company to replace systems that still perform effectively.

“We needed a warehouse management system that could scale with us and not force us to change how we operate,” said Robert Gabrielson, Vice President of Supply Chain at Hirsch Pipe & Supply. He said the system improved efficiency and supplied visibility that had previously been missing.

Eric Allais, President and CEO of PathGuide Technologies, told The Supply Chainer the implementation allowed Hirsch to improve labor efficiency and identify further productivity opportunities.

For warehouse operators facing similar growth, the lesson is less about one system than about recognizing the point at which manual coordination becomes a constraint. Technology can delay the need for additional labor and extract more capacity from an existing facility, but only if improvements are measured across the complete order flow rather than at the picking station alone.