Rex says
The fast lane for the math you almost remember from school. Type the numbers, get the answer, move on with your day.
Try a scenario
Click to load — tweak from there.Inputs
Result
Estimated annual labor savings
$1,751,750
Effective time per order (waved)
142.5
Seconds saved per order vs single-pick
367.5
Labor hours saved per day
306.25
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How to use this
- 1Enter travel time per pick tour (sec).
- 2Enter pick + pack time per order (sec).
- 3Enter orders per wave/tour.
- 4Enter orders per day.
- 5Enter burdened hourly wage ($).
- 6Read your estimated annual labor savings on the right — it updates as you type.
- 7Hit Share to keep the scenario or send it to someone.
About this calculator
Wave picking (also called batch picking) groups multiple orders into a single pick tour so a picker collects for several orders in one pass through the warehouse instead of walking a separate round trip for each order. The efficiency gain comes almost entirely from spreading fixed travel time across more orders per tour. This calculator compares total labor time for single-order picking against a proposed wave size, showing the labor hours and cost saved per shift and per year. Diminishing returns set in as wave size grows — going from 1 order per tour to 6 saves a lot, going from 12 to 18 saves much less — because pick time itself (not travel) becomes the larger share of total tour time at bigger wave sizes, so there's usually an optimal wave size beyond which cart capacity or sort complexity outweighs further travel savings.
Worked example
Using the values the calculator loads with:
Inputs
- Travel time per pick tour: 420 sec
- Pick + pack time per order: 90 sec
- Orders per wave/tour: 8
- Orders per day: 3000
- Burdened hourly wage: 22 $
Results
- Estimated annual labor savings: $1,751,750
- Effective time per order (waved): 142.5
- Seconds saved per order vs single-pick: 367.5
- Labor hours saved per day: 306.25
What each field means
Inputs
- Travel time per pick tour (sec)
- The travel time per pick tour used in the calculation, measured in sec. Starts at 420 sec so you have a working example on load.
- Pick + pack time per order (sec)
- The pick + pack time per order used in the calculation, measured in sec. Starts at 90 sec so you have a working example on load.
- Orders per wave/tour
- The orders per wave/tour used in the calculation. Starts at 8 so you have a working example on load. Accepted range: 1–30.
- Orders per day
- The orders per day used in the calculation. Starts at 3000 so you have a working example on load.
- Burdened hourly wage ($)
- The burdened hourly wage used in the calculation, measured in $. Starts at 22 $ so you have a working example on load.
Results
- Estimated annual labor savings
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars and shown as the headline result. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Effective time per order (waved)
- Returned as a decimal number. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Seconds saved per order vs single-pick
- Returned as a decimal number. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Labor hours saved per day
- Returned as a decimal number. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
FAQ
What wave size should I target?
Most operations find the sweet spot between 6 and 15 orders per wave, constrained by cart capacity (how many order totes fit on the pick cart) and pick-to-tote sort complexity. Beyond that range, the marginal travel savings per additional order in the wave shrinks fast while sortation error risk climbs, since pickers have more totes to keep straight.
Does wave picking increase sortation error risk?
Yes — batching orders means a mis-sort puts the wrong item in the wrong tote, which doesn't happen in single-order picking. Pick-to-light, put-to-light, or barcode-verified sortation stations largely offset this risk and are standard companions to any wave-picking implementation above small wave sizes.
What if orders in a wave ship on different trucks or times?
Wave picking works best when orders in the same wave have similar cutoff times, since the whole wave typically completes together before moving to pack and ship. Mixing orders with very different ship windows into one wave can delay urgent orders behind slower ones, so wave composition should group by cutoff time as well as pick-path proximity.
How does this interact with slotting optimization?
Wave picking and slotting optimization compound — better slotting reduces travel time per tour, and batching spreads that already-reduced travel time across more orders. Running both improvements together typically yields a bigger combined gain than either one alone, so sequence a slotting project before finalizing wave size to avoid under-sizing the wave based on outdated travel times.
Accuracy and limitations
- Results are rounded for display; the underlying calculation keeps full precision.
- Very large or very small inputs may hit floating-point limits in the browser.
- Inputs outside the accepted range are clamped rather than rejected.
Related tools
Cite this calculator
Writing about this topic? Grab a citation — every link helps keep these tools free.
RevenueLab. (2026). Wave Picking Efficiency Calculator. Retrieved from https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/wave-picking-efficiency
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/wave-picking-efficiency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wave Picking Efficiency Calculator — RevenueLab</a> (2026).</p>
Source: [Wave Picking Efficiency Calculator — RevenueLab](https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/wave-picking-efficiency) (2026).