You can just throw away the zones and let the workers move freely. Bartholdi says his self-organizing method abolishes zones and enables employees to migrate to the work. It is a way of organizing workers on a flow line so that the line balances itself. Bartholdi runs a computer simulation on the computer in his office. Gone are the zones.
Employees work in small teams together to fill orders.
You don't care where it is because the workers will go there. In the computer simulation, a team of three people work an aisle, picking products for shipment. The first employee makes selections, puts them into a tote tray and passes it to the next worker, who puts other products in the tray and so on. When the last worker completes the task, the employee goes back to take over the work of the second employee, who then goes to take over the work of the first employee, who then begins working on the next tote. Bartholdi has computed the ideal location for the employees to exchange work, and as they continue, they reach the mathematical optimum.