Packing

The packing screen shows one box at a time. Four boxes side by side on a five-inch screen are not legible, and the packer works on one box at a time.

What is on the screen

From the top:

• the order number and the pieces done out of the pieces owed, shown as 7 of 12 pieces, with the bar underneath;
• the box card: Box 2 of 3, what it weighs, and the carton it is;
• what is in the box;
• the order’s own lines, with badges saying which box each belongs to;
• one row of controls: the two arrows, Seal this box and More.

Two records, deliberately apart

Marking a line packed says the goods are accounted for. Putting a piece in a box says where it physically is. They are recorded separately, because combining them would allow a sealed box to contain goods from another order.

Both are recorded at once by scanning an article or pulling its row right. Moving a piece between boxes changes only the box.

The badges

Under a line’s name, one badge per box it touches:

Badge	Meaning
3x Box 2	owed to that box
1/3x Box 2	part-filled
4/3x Box 2 — too many	more in that box than the split asked for
2x Box 3 — not planned here	in a box the split never asked for

The last two are warnings and carry an exclamation mark. A piece in excess of the plan is a piece another box requires, and once the carton is taped it can no longer be moved, so placing one in the wrong box also plays the error sound and displays That piece was planned for box 1, not box 2.

Inside the box’s own list, a row that should not be there is drawn in red too.

The carton

Under the box header: the carton’s name and its inner size, or No carton chosen. The line never disappears.

Two ways to set it:

• More → Carton and pick from the list;
• scan the carton label from the sheet on the wall. An empty box becomes that carton; on a box that already contains goods the scan means that this box is finished, so the app offers to close it and carries the scanned carton to the next box, stating The next box will be Carton M.

An unknown label says No carton has the code BOX-77.

The More menu

More opens a sheet with two groups:

• Actions — Add a box, Plan the boxes again, Remove this box for a box that is empty and is not the last one, and Order shipments;
• Carton — the shop’s cartons, with the current one marked.

Order shipments asks the carrier for labels now, for the order on the bench. It is there for a shop whose rule books nothing by itself; where a rule does, the answer is There is nothing to book — the boxes are either empty or already with the carrier. An order that may not be shipped at all says so: The order will not be shipped: it is cancelled, or waiting for payment.

Sealing

Four things close a box, and the shop decides which of them stop to ask. The setting is the bench’s own, Confirming a box the system closes in Order packing, so a shop that packs hands-free at the desk packs hands-free on the terminal:

What closes it	Asks when the setting is…
Seal this box pressed	whatever Close parcel opens the closing dialogue says
a carton scanned onto a box with goods in it	Always
the box now holds everything its plan asked for	Always
the run is being finished over an open box	Always or Ask when something is missing, and at the last box

A box short of what it was measured for asks in every one of these cases. Closing it freezes the layout of every box after it, and that cannot be corrected afterwards.

The question reads Close box 2 with 5 pieces in it? Sealing cannot be undone, because the carrier label is purchased against the contents and the weight of the box. If the order still owes pieces, the question states it: 3 pieces of this order are still unpacked.

The seal records what the bench has recorded throughout: the contents, the weight, the carton, the station, and whether this was the last box. The last of these is the point at which the shop treats the order as complete and, in a shop that books shipments per order, the point at which the labels are ordered.

A box that will not close says This box could not be sealed.

Too heavy

When a box goes over the weight the carton allows, the screen asks once, at the crossing: This box is over its weight. with Move the last piece on and Keep it in this box. The operation is not blocked, because consolidating deliberately is a valid decision, but the question is asked while the piece can still be moved.

Finishing the run

The button in the footer reads 5 pieces still to pack while anything is owed, and This order is done when nothing is. Pressing it reports to the shop that the run is finished; only then does the wave cease to be open work.

A run does not finish while a box is open. If a box is still open with goods in it, it is presented first and closed, either automatically or with the question, depending on the shop’s setting, and the finish continues once it is shut. An order that is fully scanned with its last box standing open is an order with no weight, no label and no shipment.

Once the run is finished, the shop is informed for every order the wave carried. This is the event a rule set to order labels once the run is closed waits for: the bench packs a wave and then collects one set of labels.

The screen that follows shows a tick and how many pieces were packed. Where the orders go next is not asked here: that is a decision made where the whole order is visible, and the administration does not offer it at the end of a run either.