What is wave picking?
Wave picking groups orders into batches, called waves, that a supervisor releases to the floor together, controlling which work starts and when.
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Why release work in waves
Releasing every order as it arrives makes it hard to plan labour or meet carrier collection times. A wave groups orders, often by carrier or ship time, and releases them together.
The supervisor decides how much work goes to the floor and in what order. Urgent orders can go in an early wave.
Worked example
In this example, a carrier collects at 14:00. At 10:00 the supervisor builds a wave of the 45 orders for that carrier and releases it.
The system reserves stock for every line and creates 130 pick tasks with the wave's priority. By 13:15 all tasks are complete and the orders are staged at the outbound door.
How Waresify handles it
In Waresify a wave moves from draft to released, in progress and completed, or it can be cancelled. On release, the allocation engine reserves stock and creates pick tasks, ordered FEFO, then FIFO, then by distance to outbound staging.
If some tasks are blocked and the supervisor decides to ship what is there, they cancel the blocked tasks and the wave completes.
Questions
What is the difference between wave and batch picking?
A wave is a release of work. Batch picking is a way of doing it, with one picker collecting several orders in one trip. Waves can be picked one order at a time or in batches.
How big should a wave be?
Small enough to finish before its deadline with the people on shift. Many sites start with one wave per carrier collection.