Wave Picking for Sales Orders using Advanced WMS in Microsoft Dynamics AX
Editor's Note: This represents the third of a 3-part series about sales order picking/shipping, and is drawn from the Essential Guide for Advanced Warehouse Management using Microsoft Dynamics AX: 2016 Edition. A previous article described the series of Essential Guides.
Sales order picking/shipping activities often represent some of the most critical warehouse management processes within manufacturing and distribution companies. When using the Advanced WMS capabilities within AX 2012 R3 or the new Dynamics AX, many scenarios employ a wave picking approach as a key part of this business process. A wave picking approach commonly refers to a grouping of sales order shipments with the same delivery requirements. The grouping is termed a shipment wave or wave for short. The contents of a shipment wave can be released and picked together to meet a planned departure time of a shipping vehicle, thereby improving efficiency of the picking/shipping process.
There are several variations of a wave picking approach. At its simplest, a shipment wave reflects the sales lines for a single sales order, so that the wave picking approach is frequently termed order-based picking. Other variations involve wave picking for a grouping of sales order shipments, which represents the more common reference for a wave picking approach. The planning aspects of wave picking consist of several steps, where many of the steps can be performed automatically to reflect the typical decision making logic. An extended explanation about wave picking - and its associated wave planning -- can be segmented into the following topics.
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Scott Hamilton has consulted globally with several hundred manufacturing/distribution companies on SCM and ERP issues. His publications include multiple books about SCM using Dynamics 365FO/AX, two textbooks about SCM/ERP, and 100+ articles in MSDynamicsWorld.com. Scott has been a frequent speaker at Microsoft and user group conferences around the world, and a 10-time winner of the rarely given Microsoft MVP award.
