What is Wave Picking?
Wave picking is a term for a process used in a Warehouse Management System (WMS) to support organizing of the daily flow of work of a warehouse or distribution center.
Wave picking is an application of short-interval-scheduling. Users, using a WMS, assign groups of orders into short intervals called "waves", to initially simulate the flow for the day, consistent with the order departure plan and available labor.
One of the objectives of wave picking is to minimize the variation of workload in each work function by wave.
There are three basic management tasks accomplished and benefits of wave picking.
- To organize the sequence of orders and their assignment to waves, consistent with routing, loading and planned departure times of shipping vehicles or production requirements, etc., and therefore to reduce the staging space required for shipping dock handling to assemble orders, load and ship;
- To assign staff to each wave and function within each wave, with the expectation that all the work assigned to each wave will be completed at approximately the same time, within the wave period, providing management with the ability to monitor and manage performance throughout the day, responding in a timely way to problems that occur, and more effectively utilize the staffing throughout the shift; and
- To support management control, before and during a work shift, to achieve the daily plan and react in a timely way, and measure and report the results.
Wave Picking Role
Wave picking was designed so you can setup wave configurations and preview these wave configurations without giving the client wave picking access until they are ready to go live. This allows you to start setting up a client on wave picking without forcing them to use it until they are ready.
Note: As soon as the users assign a client wave picking access, they can no longer pick using the old process and they have to use the wave picking from this point onwards. The Wave Pickers access is only allowed to view or transact the Mobile Wave Picking.
Mobile Wave Picking
Login to the HHT.
...