Introduction to scenarios
The Microsoft Dynamics AX Warehouse management module
supports a number of advanced scenarios for warehouses, thanks to the
flexibility offered by the concept of Work and work lines, which take care of
any and all operations in the warehouse. The system has a number of complex
configuration possibilities that determine how work is created. At the same
time, AFTER it has been created, work is fixed and any necessary changes
require a lot of manual supervisor interventions, or, in many cases, are not
possible at all.
Imagine the following two scenarios:
Scenario 1
A customer orders a number of items from us. Based on our
work template setup, multiple work orders are created to pick these items from
the warehouse, say, some are picked from a cooled area, while the rest is
coming from the regular picking area. All of the items are placed into a
staging area location after picking, to be loaded on a delivery truck.
Scenario 2
A customer orders a number of items from us. A sales order
is created in our system, released to warehouse, so work is created. The
picking commences, and the goods arrive at the staging location, but are not
shipped the same day, because the truck to pick them up only arrives tomorrow.
The same evening, the same customer orders more items from us. Correspondingly,
a new sales order is created and released to warehouse, creating more work. The
pick is completed, and the goods are placed in the staging location ready to be
loaded the next day. The warehouse manager decides to ship both shipments on
the same truck tomorrow, adding the second shipment to the same load that
contains the first shipment.
In both scenarios, we now have two license plates on the
same load, that are going to the same customer, sitting in the same location.
When the truck comes, they will need to be loaded separately one by one, even
though in many cases, the items would fit perfectly fine on just one license
plate.
Until now, the warehouse worker had no way to merge the two
license plates together to ship everything on just one license plate, at least
in the system (probably does happen outside of the system already).
In the Fall release of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations
(1611) we have added the ability of consolidating items on a license plate with
items on another license place within the same location, where there is work
behind one or more of the license plates. This is supported by a new type of
mobile device menu item with Indirect Activity code “Consolidate
license plates”.
Scenario walkthrough
All you need to do to enable this mobile device flow is create a new mobile device menu item that looks like the screenshot below:LP consolidation mobile device menu item |
For the scenario walk-through I have created two sales orders
as below:
- Sales order 000781 for customer US-001, which contains two lines:
- 10 ea of item M9200 from warehouse 51
- 15 ea of item M9201 from warehouse 51
- Sales order 000782 for customer US-001, which contains one line:
- 7 ea of item M9201 from warehouse 51
Sales order 000781 was released to warehouse first, before
000782 existed, resulting in the creation of Shipment USMF-000008 on Load
USMF-000010.
Sales order 000782 was then added to the same Load, and also
released to warehouse, resulting in the creation of Shipment USMF-000009.
The following picking work was created for these 2
shipments:
Work order details |
This scenario corresponds directly to Scenario 2 I described
above.
Now, for both work orders the initial picks are
executed (one or different workers), and for both the goods end up at the STAGE
location, awaiting loading, as shown below:
Work order details after initial pick was executed |
From here on, license plates TLP_001 and TLP_002 follow the
same path in the warehouse, more specifically they both will be picked up from
STAGE and loaded into the truck at BAYDOOR location.
If the warehouse worker at the outbound dock makes the
decision to consolidate these two license plates (currently, this is only an
ad-hoc decision by the worker, planned consolidations are not supported), he
can do that using the above mobile device menu item. Here is how the flow would
look on the mobile device:
Step 1
You are presented with a screen, where you need
to enter the Target LP. This is the License plate, where the items will
end up after the consolidation.
- This can be a new License plate. There is no way to print this new LP Tag from this screen at this point, however, so keep that in mind.
- This can be an existing empty License plate. This could, for example, be useful, if you want to merge the contents of 2 half-pallets onto 1 empty euro pallet. Another case is if the pallet, where the items currently are placed, is damaged or “unshippable”.
- This can be an existing full License plate, which is set as a Target LP on an existing work order with Work order type “Sales order” or “Transfer order issue”
- This should not be work that has a Container Id on the header or any of the lines.
LP Consolidation, Step 1 |
Step 2
Target LP was accepted, and now you are asked to scan in the
LP you want to merge onto the Target LP.
- LP to merge needs to be a target license plate for an existing work order of Work Order Type Sales Order or Transfer Order Issue.
- The LP to merge needs to be in the same location as the Target LP, and it cannot be the final shipping location (that’s too late, since goods are already Picked at this point).
- The LP to merge needs to relate to the same Load as the Target LP
- It should also have the same delivery information, if there are more than one shipment involved. Namely, the Delivery name, Customer account, Delivery address and Mode of Delivery should match.
- The remaining steps in the flow for both work orders being merged need to match. This is done so we ensure all relevant steps are executed, for example, that the labels are printed at the appropriate time in the flow for all consolidated items.
- This should not be work that has a Container Id on the header or any of the lines.
LP consolidation, Step 2 |
Step 3
When LP to merge is accepted, the worker is presented with a
confirmation screen, that shows a summary of all items on that license plate.
This is to help ensure that he scanned in the right LP before the actual
consolidation of the two work orders happens.
LP consolidation, Step 3 |
Step 4
Once the worker confirms by pressing OK, the consolidation
is executed, merging the two work orders together and moving all items from LP
to merge to the Target LP.
LP consolidation, Step 4 |
Here is how the work looks after consolidation happens:
Work order details after LP consolidation - Merge From work |
The
work related with Target LP, in our scenario walk-through that is
TLP_001, is still In progress, and you can see the quantities on the
remaining Pick/Put pair were increased accordingly with the quantity from work
related with TLP_002.
Work order details after LP consolidation - Consolidated work |
If you review the corresponding work transactions, you will
see that an extra transaction corresponding to the load line for M9201 from
sales order 000782 has been added to the Pick line to represent the additional
Pick quantity.
Accordingly, the inventory transactions also reflect the
fact items were moved from TLP_002 to TLP_001, and the new work reservations
are based on that as well.
Mobile device menu item configuration option “Cancel remaining origin work lines”
We expect most companies to run with this configuration
option turned on. It comes into play in the following situation: When there are
more subsequent staging steps on both work orders, this configuration will
enable you to forfeit any of the steps on the work being merged from, so the
steps on the consolidated work will be the ones executed for all merged items.
That specifically means that any “extra” steps on the work being merged will be
Cancelled.
If there are some specific reasons why all work steps need
to be executed for the merged work order separately, you should not enable the
configuration option. As a result, however, you will not be able to consolidate
this LP to another one.
See a more detailed explanation in the Help Text for this
configuration on the menu item.
For those behind on updates :)
This feature has been back-ported to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3.
You can download it from KB number 3190562
Let us know what you think of this new feature!
Hi Vanya
ReplyDeleteWe have a customer requirement that is to consolidate LPs at a staging area but for Purchase orders. Currently getting the error message "Function Consolidate licence plates has been incorrectly called."
Is this what you would expect and what would be involved in making this work?
Would we have to create a New menu item or something less?
Many thanks
craigmcameron@gmail.com
This functionality is only enabled for Sales orders and Transfer orders (outbound)
DeleteWhy can you not just use a regular movement? (Maybe with "allow movement of work with reservation)? I haven't tried, but that seems to be the closest to match your requirements.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI try to consolidate two LP.
both are on the same location. The open work was created for 2 different work pools (same wave, shippment, load)
I get now the error msg: "Origin and Target remaining work lines do not match and thus License plates LP0001 and LP0002 cannot be consolidated" is there a workaround?
Thank you,
reto / retom@woodi.ch
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI could solve my issue from yesterday. The problem were different locations as destination. Due to different location policies (with and without SKU) this was setup wrong from my side.
BR & thank you for the blog, Reto
Yes, exactly, different destination/path. Glad you worked it out!
ReplyDeleteHey, after you consolidate two LPs, are you still able to see from which LPs target LP consists?
ReplyDeleteHey, is it possible two see from which LPs consist target LP?
ReplyDeleteThis is not possible, because consolidation is not actually nesting child LPs onto the parent/target LP - instead, it moves the individual items from the LPs onto the Target LP. So there's no LPs that target LP consists of.
DeleteHi Ivan, interesting post. I'm testing with this consolidation menu item and get a message "Function Consolidate license plates has been incorrectly called" when I press "OK" after giving the LP to merge. Do you've any idea whas is causing this? Both license plates are on the same location.
ReplyDeleteHi, this is most likely because you are trying to use the function for other processes than outbound (sales or transfer orders).
DeleteWhich version are you on? Based on the error I want to assume this is already re-written to use ProcessGuide. Have you tried setting a breakpoint to see what the reason is for this being incorrectly called?
ReplyDeleteThe process is fairly straight forward but for some strange reason when I do an LP Enquiry or Print a label it comes up with the first LP qty as opposed to the new total quantity.
ReplyDeleteAny reason behind this?
Well, I guess, in short, the reason is that we do not expect anyone to do it. You consolidate for the purpose of shipping it pretty much right after. You can probably log support requests for these, if important for your business, but it will end up on the backlog for one of the future releases
DeleteWe have a containerization logic which breaks the work with container volume in work header break. Now when i try to consolidate the LP it throws a error message " License plate has work lines that are part of containerization flow. Consolidating such license plate is not currently supported" Can anyone please help with this if you have faced a similar problem. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid this is an unsupported flow
DeleteI would suggest logging it on the ideas portal so it can be improved in future releases