Warehouse Management

We are excited to share with you that Oracle announced the general availability of E-Business Suite Release 12.1 at OAUG Collaborate conference in Orlando.

This latest release of the Oracle E-Business Suite provides product enhancements across human resources, supply chain management, procurement, projects, master data management, customer relationship management and financials.

With the Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1, organizations can achieve rapid value today, as well as standardize and simplify their infrastructure and business processes for long-term results.

The Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 also features industry specific features and solutions that help drive greater value across the enterprise. Industries with significant new functionality advancements include Wholesale Distribution, Public Sector, High Technology, Engineering & Construction, Life Sciences, Retail, Professional Services, Communications, Consumer Goods and Utilities.

This release is important for WMS as there are many powerful features available in this release. The main features for WMS are:

a. Forward Pick Area Replenishment: This includes demand driven "Pull" and "Push" replenishment to a pick area from reserve or bulk area.
b. High Volume Case Picking: Ability to generate case labels and perform picking and labeling of multiple cases using a single task. Cases can be picked and loaded to conveyor (Pick To Belt) or picked on to a pallet (Pick to Pallet).
c. Flexible Cartonization: Enables "Pick and pass" and "Zone Picking" directly into shipping cartons.
d. Cluster pick using labels: Enables cluster pick or batch pick of multiple orders directly into pre-labeled shipping cartons.
e. Load Sequencing and Dock door appointment synchronization: Leverage transportation planning and carrier appointment in Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) to plan execution in WMS. Ensure that material is staged to the right dock door at the right time.

There are many more features in this release. A complete list of features in this release is available in the R12.1 Release Content Document.

We will be doing a series of blog posts for each of these features in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Many of you are already familiar with the concept of cartonization, but for completeness we will review the basic concepts before diving into the new features.

So, what is cartonization?

Simply put, it is a process by which WMS suggests a container with a LPN for picking one or more items. If the container is a shipping container, warehouse operators can combine the “picking” and “packing” steps into one. Done this way, cartonization in effect removes the need for a packing station, and speeds up the overall outbound process. It works by allowing the operator to pick up the proper shipping container prior to picking (size calculated based on picks) and assign a shipping label to the container. The operator then scans the LPN on shipping label and proceeds to pick directly into the shipping container. Once complete, the carton can be directly dropped in the staging lane for shipping. It is a useful feature commonly used by R12 WMS customers today.

And what is new?

What sets 12.1 flexible cartonization apart from its predecessor is its flexibility and customizability. One of the features is the ability to specify Cartonization Rules using rules Workbench:

Rules Workbench(1) is a familiar tool for many to manage all rules related to Pick, Put Away, Cost Group, and Crossdock. Cartonization is now added to the Rules Workbench as a central location to manage all the cartonization related setup.

Using this workbench, warehouses can easily commission (2), prioritize(3), and schedule(6) any cartonization requirements. Cartonization setup allows for customized strategies(4), and as an added feature it can be assigned down to a particular subinventory(5).

Cartonization can be done using one of the following algorithms:

1. Single Item Cartonization: This uses the container load relationship to cartonize. This is ideal when standard quantities of a single item are packed into a container.
2. Mixed Item Cartonization: This algorithm uses contained item and container item categories to pack one or more items into a container. Weight, volume and dimensions are considered to suggest container.
3. Pick Slip Grouping: This is a new cartonization algorithm in R12.1 that creates a carton for the entire pick slip grouping e.g. if pick slip grouping is defined for zone pick, it creates a cartonized container for all picks coming from a zone. By configuring pick slip grouping, warehouses can effectively use pick and pass, zone picking and cluster picking with cartonization.
4. Customer Specific Algorithm: This can be used to define any site specific algorithm using a PL/SQL stub API.

As shown in the screenshot above, cartonization is only enabled under the EACH subinventory using the “Pick Slip Grouping Rule”, while rests of the subinventories are unaffected. This ability provides great flexibility to the warehouse with special outbound needs.

Another added improvement allows the use of cartonization in parallel with cluster pick by label. It is now possible to “Pick and Pass” or “Zone Pick” directly into shipping containers. We will talk in details about this feature in a later post.

Last but not least, cartonization can also generate GS1-128(UCC-128) compatible shipping labels. This is a common usage scenario in a number of warehouses.

Questions? Comments? We would love to hear from you, please drop us a line.

Continuing with our previous discussion on “Flexible Cartonization”, let’s talk about a new feature in release 12.1 called “Cluster Pick by Label”. Cluster pick by label is a feature that allows large warehouses to combine multiple orders and intelligently distribute it among multiple operators.

Let’s take the following scenario for example.

Three picks are ordered in a large warehouse shown in the figure above. The three picks are randomly scattered around the warehouse as denoted by colored dots. If an operator is commissioned for each pick order, in total these three picks would require three full trips around the warehouse. A better picking strategy is to divide the warehouse into three smaller pick zones as shown below, and allow the operators to pick the three orders simultaneously.

Here’s how Cluster Pick by Label is currently implemented in 12.1. Using the flexible cartonization feature, WMS can suggest a pick container as well as generate the shipping label for it. The operator first scans all three shipping labels and proceeds to pick up the proper shipping containers as suggested by the system. WMS intelligently combines the three orders and orders picks for items nearest to the operator. The operator proceeds to pick and confirm items as suggested. At any time, the operator can stop the picking process and pass on the pick slips to the next operator. Each operator repeats the same process of scan, pick, and pass to other operators until the shipping containers reach the end of the line in staging or all pick orders are finished. The last operator is responsible to pack and deliver the container to staging area to complete the process.

There are many benefits to using Cluster Pick by Label, namely
- Eliminate wasted travel time
- Shorten total travel distance from three full rounds into one
- Alleviate machine handling equipments(MHE) and other traffic congestion
- Allow operators to specialize in a particular zone

Cluster Pick by Label feature is a classic example of sum of the efforts being greater than its individual parts.

For the advanced user of Cluster Pick by Label, it is now possible to commission bucket brigade to create a self-labor-balancing warehouse. Please follow the link to read the great article from John Bartholdi of Georgia Tech on this topic.

Case picking at high volume can be a big challenge for many warehouse managers. First, shipping label must be affixed to each case due to compliance needs. Second, each shipping label must match the record on ASN. Last but not least, operator needs to pick, label, and confirm one case at a time, which is a cumbersome process.

Let’s say your warehouse operator needs to pick 100 cases of the same item. Under the current setup, one must affix label on a case, enter pick information, scan label and then confirm. The process is efficient for a single item/case pick, but it is a time-consuming process to repeat 100 times.

Here’s a better solution:

High Volume Case Picking feature in 12.1 allows the operator to affix all of the labels at once onto the 100 cases. Since the source and destination are the same for all 100 cases, the operator enters the information only once. In a single task window, an operator is asked to scan all 100 cases, one after another. Once complete, the operator confirms once for all 100 case picks and drops the picked items to a pallet or conveyor. In essence, 12.1 High Volume Case Picking feature speeds up the outbound processing by eliminating the need to enter any duplicate information. This feature is a small improvement over the current implementation, but can potentially be a huge impact for customers with high volume picking need.

It is also worthwhile to point out that High Volume Case Picking feature is EAN-128(UCC-128) label compatible.