We can’t do “Ship Order Complete” because of the nature of our products (many custom pieces). The idea of the auto picker is to select the orders that can be picked completely. It skips the orders with custom pieces and the shipping manager still uses fulfillment workbench to release partial orders for one of the eight pickers. Eventually, we’ll add logic to auto select the partials, but for now, the focus is on complete orders. Even the partial orders will be auto picked when the last piece is available. Meaning if the customer ordered 8 lines and 7 were inventory, the warehouse manager would manually release and have the 7 lines picked. When the 8th line was available, days later, all the open lines would have inventory (in this case just one line) and would get picked for pack out.
Literally there is a go button. Picker says go, program then selects the highest priority orders and lines until it reaches the limit for any given picker (process currently takes about 20 seconds). Throttles are number of orders, usually 4 to 8, number of lines, 20-50 and sometimes weight 50 lbs. They are presented a list of order numbers so they can write the order number on their collection bin. It then presents the list of lines to be picked in the order of bins in the warehouse. Picker selects a line, pop up opens and tells them bin, quantity, order and quantity in inventory (eventually showing image of part as well). Picker moves to location, selects product, scans bar code to confirm and then has 4 choices. Picked - hopefully obvious and this is where I would like to do the inventory transfer to the ship bin, Replenish - this sends an alert to the replenishing team that the primary bin is low on inventory and needs additional items, but the picker has enough for their order/line item. Issue - the quantity shown to be in the bin location does not agree with the physical inventory. This sends a notification to the cycle count team to figure out where is the discrepancy. Both Replenish and Issue are just notifications and do nothing with the actual line to be picked. The last is Quarantine - this places the entire order in a quarantine state. The picker puts a red cone in the order bin, but continues to pick the rest of the order. It then signifies the cycle count team to figure out why the picker was told there was inventory, when in fact there was not enough inventory to fulfill the requirements of the line item.
When picker selects picked or quarantine, it automatically moves to the next line to be picked. When last line is picked, it returns them to the go button and readies itself for the next set of orders/lines. Literally 1 click per line and a scan for verification, nothing to select - it’s selected for them vs. 3 clicks with material request form and no confirmation. Possibly a second click if inventory in physical location doesn’t agree with inventory in system or low inventory
This process eliminates the redundant multiple clicks that are part of the Material Request Queue. It also forces the picker to follow the snake pattern through the warehouse instead of picking one order at a time, which has them traversing multiple times through the warehouse (yes - training and management issue). And most important, it is not dependent upon running on a windows tablet.
I’ve looked at the Biscut product, which allows the app to run on an android scanner, but it does nothing to eliminate or reduce the need of fulfillment workbench.
If we had only a couple of hundred open line items at any given time, I don’t think this would be an issue, other than the god awful windows interface on a tablet for the pickers. But with a goal of getting the majority of orders (or lines minus custom pieces) out the door, if ordered before 2 pm, every click counts, every extra step adds work and time for our pickers.