Goods-to-Person
Goods-to-person (GTP) is a fulfillment model in which automation brings inventory to a picker at a fixed workstation, instead of the picker walking to the inventory.
Why it matters for ecommerce brands
Goods-to-person removes most walking from picking, which can be over half of a picker's time in a manual operation, so it can multiply picks per labor hour. Robots, shuttles, or carousels bring totes or shelves to a fixed station, and the same systems store goods more densely. For example, a manual picker at 80 units per hour might reach 300 or more at a GTP station, cutting the labor for 24,000 daily units from 300 hours to about 80. Volume must be high and steady enough to pay for the system.
Origin
Goods-to-person picking grew from automated storage systems of the 1960s and reached e-commerce when Kiva Systems, founded by Mick Mountz in 2003, used mobile robots to carry shelves to pickers.
Common questions
- How does goods-to-person picking improve productivity?
- It removes most of the walking a picker would do, since storage robots or machines bring inventory to a fixed station. This can raise picks per hour and makes better use of storage space.
- What is the difference between goods-to-person and person-to-goods?
- In person-to-goods picking, workers walk or ride to storage locations. In goods-to-person picking, automation brings the inventory to the worker at a station.
- What types of systems are goods-to-person?
- Common examples include cube storage with grid robots, shuttle systems, robots that lift and carry shelving units, vertical lift modules, and carousels. They differ in storage density, speed, and how easily they expand.