One hundred billion picks – the latest milestone in a history of achievement!

By Lauren Dellarosa, Marketing Research Analyst, Lucas Systems

Last year, Lucas Systems celebrated 25 years of helping the on-floor worker work smarter. This year, we recently celebrated the milestone of one hundred BILLION picks using Jennifer, the brains, orchestration engine, and voice of our solution. Currently deployed in hundreds of distribution centers and used by thousands of warehouse associates every day, Jennifer has made a remarkable difference by helping the on-floor worker work smarter.

Being involved in research at Lucas, I began to conceptualize just how impressive this number is. The human brain struggles to grasp the magnitude of a number as large as one hundred billion, so let’s break it down a bit.

Consider the magnitude of one hundred billion

The length of one hundred billion one-dollar bills laid end-to-end measures over 9 million miles. This would extend around the earth 387 times! If you covered an area in one hundred billion of those one-dollar bills, it would measure 400 square miles – equivalent to just over 187,000 American football fields! If the average person decided to walk one hundred billion steps, it would be equal to walking over 45 million miles. Some more staggering facts:

• The height of a stack of 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) one dollar bills measures nearly 7,000 miles. A column of bills this high would extend 28 times higher than the orbiting International Space Station.
• If you were to count to 100,000,000,000 at a rate of one number per second, it would take you over 3,000 years to count all the way through!

You get the idea – that’s a phenomenal milestone number!

The road to one hundred billion picks

Technology and warehouse automation solutions have revolutionized the modern day warehouse. With large amounts of orders comes large inventory quantities, along with the need to fulfill those orders quickly and accurately. Solutions like voice directed picking, batch picking, and dynamic slotting can all provide a helping hand to the on-floor worker, while also increasing productivity and accuracy rates. Lucas Systems is a pioneer in voice directed and optimization technologies for the warehousing industry, and Jennifer has helped hundreds of customers meet their productivity goals over the last 25+ years of service.

Just like Google, which was founded in 1998, we’ve come a long way. The Dow Jones average was just above 9,000, Amazon was still pretty much just selling books. Moreover, just like these other industry leaders, we’ve been leading the way on innovation and customer-focused solutions.

Most recently, we were recognized by Pittsburgh Technology Council as the winner of the Innovative Tech category at its Tech 50 event in late 2023. We were also named a finalist by MHI in the Best IT Innovation category at their 2023 PROMAT show.

The Future: One hundred billion and beyond

One hundred billion picks is a huge milestone, but we’re not stopping there! With years of continuous innovation under our belt, we’re determined to continue bringing the best warehouse optimization solutions to the industry.

Our recent Voice of the Warehouse Worker thought leadership series brought unique insight and research gleaned from surveys and discussions with workers in the US. and U.K., that captured their feelings about their work and lives, both now and in the future on topics including technology, work environment, engaging with robots and gamification.

We’re also extremely excited about the evolution and enhancement of our dynamic slotting solution. Lucas provides a game changing way to re-slot the warehouse that results in large improvements in operational efficiency without the pain of traditional reslotting projects.  No other technology provider offers this capability. In most cases, AI-based slotting can deliver 10-20% labor cost savings, a 1-5% improvement in accuracy and 20-40% increase in throughput.

Over the years, we’ve had a front row seat to the evolution of supply chain processes and emerging technologies. As we look ahead to our next 100 billion picks with Jennifer, we look forward to providing continuous improvement and innovation in solutions that benefit the on-floor worker. With over 25 years of warehousing experience, Lucas is eager to see what the future holds and helping the warehouse work smarter.

Lauren Dellarosa leads Lucas Systems in developing research and conducting analysis across various industries in order to gain a better understanding of potential audiences and customers in her role as Marketing Research Analyst.

With a focus on the digital experience and utilizing best marketing practices in accordance with the ever-evolving field of marketing, she is responsible for building insights, developing outreach marketing materials, gathering market and industry data and conducting competitor analyses to help Lucas better connect its products and services to industry needs.

Lauren has specific field experience in digital marketing, brand content strategy and social media and marketing strategic planning.