The warehouse tablet

What it is

A tablet application for the people on the warehouse floor. It does one job and is built to be used while walking: take the next order off the queue, walk the bins, scan what you take, confirm it, finish. One line fills the screen at a time, the numbers are large, and nothing on it animates.

It is the same queue the packing bench sees. A pick list made in the browser is walked on the tablet, and a task somebody takes on the tablet disappears from everybody else's queue the moment they take it.

Getting the app

It runs on Android tablets and iPads, in landscape. Any tablet from the last few years is enough; there is nothing to install on your network and nothing to configure on the tablet beyond the address of your account.

A handheld barcode scanner is optional. If you have one - a sled, a ring scanner or a scanning handle - plug it in or pair it and it works immediately, because the app treats it as what it is: a keyboard that types a barcode. If you have none, the tablet's own camera is the scanner.

Signing in

A picker signs in with their own Channekt email and password, and needs a role that can pick - Picker, Packer, Warehouse manager or above. An account without it is told so rather than shown an empty screen.

The tablet signs itself out after fifteen minutes of being left alone, so one forgotten on a bench does not stay open.

If your account has more than one warehouse, the tablet asks which building it is in once per shift. With a single warehouse it does not ask at all.

Taking an order

Start picking takes the next order that is ready and puts your name on it. There is no list to choose from on purpose: two pickers tapping the same row is two people walking to the same shelf, so the order of the queue is decided in one place and handed out one at a time.

Give back returns the task to the queue for somebody else. Use it rather than walking away - a task nobody gave back is held for ten minutes before anyone else is offered it.

An empty queue says so plainly. It is not an error.

Walking the list

One line at a time, in bin order, so the walk is short and the same every time. The screen shows where to go, how many to take, the SKU and the product's name. Underneath, Still to walk lists what is left; tapping any of those jumps to it, because a picker who passed a shelf and grabbed the next thing first is not wrong.

If your account does not use bins, the line says so rather than showing an empty location.

Scanning

There are three ways to confirm a line, and they all record the same thing.

• A barcode scanner. Scan the item; each scan confirms one unit. Nothing needs to be tapped first - the app is always listening.
• The camera. Scan with the camera opens the tablet's camera with a frame in the middle. Hold the code inside it. It reads QR codes and the ordinary retail barcodes - EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC, Code 128, Code 39, Code 93, ITF, Data Matrix and PDF417. There is a light button for a dark aisle.
• Take all. One press confirms the whole line, for a picker lifting five of the same thing off one shelf.

A code that belongs to a different line of the same order jumps to that line instead of refusing. A code that is not on the order at all says so, and a line that is already picked in full says that rather than counting twice.

Scanning the same thing twice by accident does not pick it twice. The tablet sends the running total for the line rather than "one more", so a repeated scan is the same answer given again.

Front or back camera

The camera scanner opens on the back camera, which is where a barcode usually is. Front camera switches it, and the choice is remembered - on that tablet, from then on, including after it is switched off and on again.

It is a setting rather than a fixed rule because warehouses work differently. A picker carrying the tablet points the back of it at the shelf; a picker with the tablet propped on a trolley facing them scans into the front camera all day, and having to flip it on every single item is the reason they would stop using it.

The first time the camera is opened, the tablet asks permission. If it is refused, the app says where to change it and offers to carry on without it.

When the shelf is empty

Shelf was empty records that the rest of the line could not be found. This is a fact the system needs, not a failure: the order is re-settled with what is actually on the trolley, and the stock figure is corrected so the next customer is not promised something that is not there.

It is a separate button with its own colour, and it never happens by accident while scanning.

Finishing

When every line has been answered for, the tablet shows what was picked and what was short. Finish and take the next completes the task and goes straight back to the queue.

The order then moves to the packing bench, where the parcel is weighed, the label is bought and the channel is told.

What it does not do yet

These are being built. They are listed here so nobody plans around them.

• A PIN instead of a password. Today every picker types their email and password. A shared tablet should ask for a name and a four-digit PIN, and that is the next thing.
• Packing, labels and printing. The packing bench is the browser for now.
• Working offline. The tablet needs the network. It does not queue up confirmations to send later.
• Putaway, stock counts and transfers. Picking only, so far.