Warehouse Management

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.