Supply chain | Supply Chain Management, Commerce

WMS and fixed location picking

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Posted on by DynCons

Are we overlooking any potential alternatives for sales picking with fixed locations?

The prerequisites:

- The warehouse has 1 fixed location for picking per item number

- Bulky items, many refills of new pallets on picking floor per day
- The refilling of picking locations is done with the same forklift used when picking from picking buffer bin on top of the picking floor locations

- The same warehouse worker should perform the refilling in the process of picking

- Replenishment to picking location CANNOT be done until it is emptied out, as only 1 pallet can fit
- There is not enough room to temporairly store pallets in the aisle or any over-flow locations

- Replenishing individual cases and not full pallets to picking location is not an accepted solution

Alternatives - are we missing any?

1. Allow picking from buffer locations

Sales work is created towards the picking buffer locations. Using the parameter on Warehouse worker to allow movement of inventory work, will allow for pallet movement from the picking buffer location.

When the worker has picked the last qty from the floor location, the worker is directed to the second line. He/she can the perform manual pallet movement to floor and pick the rest(work line is automatically updated with the new location).

Down-side:
- Need to exit the work and make a pallet movement. Not possible to use detour, as the work line remains /In process/ and the pallet movement does not allow to move work associated to work lines /In process/.

2. Use Min/Max and/or Wave demand + /Block entire work/
Sales work will be created towards floor locations. Work are not displayed on warehouse app until replenishment is done.
This further delays location reservations and risk with allocation conflicts when more sales orders are released at the same time.

3. Use Min/Max and/or Wave demand + /Block individual lines/ results in similar pains or limitations as above.
Could be used with a detour to replenishment list and execute the replenishment work but has some other pains.

All alternatives above also don't enable the /first come, first served/ approach which is preferred for this perticular warehouse as the picking also involves physically packing and buliding the pallet that will be sold.
It's critical that the inventory is available for picking at the point of arriving to the location.
Issues can occur when smaller orders reach a picking location before a larger order has had the time to pick its allocated inventory. The smaller order cannot physically move the pallet anywhere, as it's dependant on the first order to empty the location first.

Is the WMS simply not best suited for a warehouse setup like this, given it's location reservation mechanics and we should instead over-see, way of working, the utilization of floor space etc.?
Or are we over-seeing any alternative approaches from a WMS toolbox point of view?

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DynCons 4 on at

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WMS and fixed location picking

Thanks for your inputs and ideas. Slotting would require a major rework of way of working which we will not have time for in the initial go-live phase for these warehouses.

Im theorizing about below concept:

- Apply Min/Max replenishment to picking locations with a threshold of e.g. 0,5 pl.
This ensures that when the location is physically empty, there should be a replenishment work ready to process.
Batch job runs every 1 minute.

- Allow split on sales pick location, so the warehouse worker can ensure to pick the last cases on the picking location

- Only block work lines for dependant replenishment (not entire work header) to allow the worker to start picking of partially blocked work

- Add detour on relevant user directed steps to reach the "Replenishment work list" when physically emptying the picking location.
User then detour to replenishment work list, scans the location to refill (we have a custom display field for "Final Put location).
This filters the work to execute. User runs the replenishment and this will unblock the last line to execute.

This would allow the same warehouse worker to perform the picking and replenishment in the process flow.

If there is a "first come, first serve issue", then we could add additional picking locations physically, or just dedicate the first + second level to one single picking location systematically.
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Laurens vd Tang 2,576 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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WMS and fixed location picking

Good day,

Would it not be an option to use the 'Slotting' feature? See following links for more information about Slotting:

- https://laurensvandertang.wordpress.com/2022/12/02/slotting/

- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/supply-chain/warehousing/warehouse-slotting

Best regards,

Laurens van der Tang
Guy Terry 28,695 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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WMS and fixed location picking

I don't have any great ideas, but I think something like your first suggestion:

worker goes to picking location and empties it

worker goes to buffer location, brings down the pallet and moves it to the picking location

worker picks the remaining quantity and records this in F&O (potentially, he is telling F&O that it was picked from the buffer location, even though the pallet is now physically in the picking location). This completes the work line.

worker does a movement in F&O to record the movement of the pallet from the buffer location to the picking location

worker moves on to next pick line

By doing the pallet move after the work line is picked, can you use the detour function?

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