Question

avoid Handling Unit picking when picking entire HU to shipment

  • 8 October 2021
  • 6 replies
  • 463 views
ROVECH
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Userlevel 3
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Dear community,

Situation: in the main warehouse we are working with HUs - plastic bins that contain smaller parts. These bins remain in that warehouse. Parts are picked out of the bin into a shipment area. Mostly this works fine, except when a bin contains the exact amount of parts on a pick line: in this case IFS assumes that the entire HU is picked and moves the bin onto the shipment location:

  1. 2 CO line reservations, 1 for a complete stock record and 1 where only a part of the stock record is needed:

 

2. the pick list, notice that IFS picked up an ‘outernmost HU’ for the stock record that is picked entirely:

3.The picked lines in the shipment inventory:

In reality the HU 166 stayed in the main warehouse just like the other bin (136) is there any way to avoid IFS core logic from doing this? And if not, is there any way to unattach the stock record from this HU 166 in this stage? So far the only way I found is to attach the line to a shipment and then unattach on the shipment (and then remove the bin and delete the shipment again). Since shipments are normally not defined in this stage of the process yet this is not feasible.

Thanks, Roel

6 replies

Asela Munasinghe
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@ROVECH , what’s the setup you have here in the site? 

 

 

Seems to me that not only for reservation, but also for picking IFS looks for an optimized setup for usage of HU through this. According to the definition, it will try to pick the HU with the largest quantity, i.e. trying to reserve less HUs as possible. It will also try to pick outermost HU in front of HU being a part of a structure. 

My assumption is your site only has ‘Handling Unit Optimization’ ticked and the above 2 priorities selected somewhere along the priorities? Did you try unchecking Handling Unit Optimization (it removes the above 2 options from priorities by bringing down to 3 priorities only) and picking again?

Let's connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asela61/
ROVECH
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Userlevel 3
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Hi Asela, my settings are as per your screenshot. I tried your suggestion but it did not make a difference. The reservation logic does not seem to be a means to steer this. Reserving either manually or automatically does not make a difference either.

So my question remains open: is there anyway to steer IFS’ behaviour here and if not, is there any feasible way to unattach HUs for stock records in shipment inventory?

Thanks, Roel

Asela Munasinghe
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Userlevel 7
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Hi Roel, tagging a couple of IFS Supply Chain Experts @ShadowWizard and @Rangi Wijewardana who might be able to further advise here

Let's connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asela61/
Rangi Wijewardana
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As far as I experienced, it is not possible to take innermost HUs out from the outer most packaging and pick parts in innermost packing aid, if the reserved qty= qty in outer most packing aid as system assume entire HU is going to be picked.

In the shipments in preliminary stage (although parts are picked), you can repack parts into new HU structure (without outer packaging in previous structure) automatically by setting shipment type to trigger pack according to packing instruction or pack according to handling unit capacity. 

As I understand, Top level handling unit is already picked in to Shipment inventory and shipment is in completed state and you expect to repack them removing top level/outermost packaging.That is not facilitated.

Here you can return parts to picking location via Handling units in shipment inventory or inventory parts in shipment inventory windows and then

unattach parts from HU when the parts are in Picking Location prior to pick them again or

repack them in shipment in preliminary stage

Johan Lundström
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I think it is the fact that shipment is in state Complete that prevent you from making any changes to HU structure.

If you  first do “Undo Complete” on shipment you should be able to remove parent HU from inner HU so that it becomes a HU directly connected to shipment. This should be possible even though HU are in shipment inventory. So then by manually removing all the HU from your parent HU that should remain in inventory (not to be delivered) you should be able to just deliver the inner HU.

ROVECH
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Userlevel 3
Badge +6

Hi Johan, I now realize my question title is a bit misleading, but there is no shipment yet. This is just a COL being reserved and picked onto a shipment location (that is what I meant to say - shipment location or shipment inventory).

This firm does not yet or not always work with shipments. It is solely about picking a COL and avoiding the HU to be picked along with the stock record. And if that cannot be avoided, then a way to undo this, i.e. unattaching the HU from the stock record in shipment inventory.

 

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