The picking route

A pick list defines the route an operator walks through the warehouse. The order of its lines directly affects the distance covered during collection, and the module determines that order from the best available source of data about where the goods are placed.

In a warehouse that has just been started, that source is not yet a floor plan, so the order of the lines follows the operational data already recorded in the system.

How the order is determined

The order is established in two stages. When the operation is created, the module writes a sequence onto every pick line, sorting the lines by four keys applied in turn:

#	Key	What it contributes
1	the handling band of the line	goods to be carried on top are collected first, goods for the bottom of the load last
2	the stop number of the bin	the position of the bin along the walk
3	the level of the floor	floors are walked in order
4	the bin code	a deterministic order where the keys above are equal

A bin without a stop number is not treated as stop zero. It is treated as unknown and sorted to the end of the walk, and the same applies to a floor without a level and to a bin without a code.

The handling band leads only in a warehouse where handling rules have been configured. Where none exist, the order follows the geometry alone. The bands are walked in the sequence top, normal, floor, which is the order in which goods can be stacked without damaging one another; a line whose article has no band assigned is walked with normal. → Handling rules

On the run screen the list is sorted once more. If the bins of a floor are drawn on the floor plan, the module builds a route across that plan and orders the lines by the stops on it. Without a plan the screen keeps the sequence described above, falling back to the stop number and then to the bin code, compared with numeric awareness so that A-2 precedes A-10.

The bin code is the only key that does not follow the building: it places A-01-1 before B-02-3 because of the code itself, not because of where the two bins stand in the hall.

What the run screen shows

While collecting, the run screen carries a badge naming the source of the current order: Order from bin codes or Alphabetical order. A list built from a route across the floor plan carries no badge, because no source above it exists.

The badge holds a tooltip. It describes what the current source does and names the action that moves the list to the source above it: placing the bins on the floor plan, and, for an alphabetical list, either that or giving the bins codes that carry the aisle and the rack. The tooltip does not preview the order that the source above would produce.

Order from bin codes

The module reads the aisle and the rack from the codes the bins already carry and arranges the bins as a serpentine: the aisles are walked in order, and every second aisle is walked in the opposite direction, so that an aisle just finished is not walked a second time. Which aisle counts as every second one is decided by its ordinal among the aisles of the warehouse, not by the number in its name, because halls skip numbers. Within an aisle the racks are followed by the level and then by the position of the bin.

The codes are interpreted through the Bin naming standard of the warehouse, set under Stockly → Warehouses → warehouse → General. A shop that ran the setup wizard against a location field already has one.

Note

The module compares how many bins it could read against the number of bins it is allowed to renumber. If fewer than about six in ten can be read, it writes nothing at all: such codes are a numbering from another system rather than a description of the building, and a serpentine based on them would not correspond to the hall. Numbers written by an earlier successful pass are left untouched rather than cleared, so a warehouse that has never been numbered is the one that falls back to the bin code.

The numbers are recalculated automatically when a bin’s code changes, when a bin moves to another floor, and when the naming standard changes. A change to the floor plan does not trigger the recalculation, because a route replaces these numbers rather than depending on them. The numbers advance in tens, so a single bin can be inserted between two others without renumbering the hall.

The recalculation can also be started by hand: Recompute walk order in the menu next to the Add bin location button (Stockly → Warehouses → warehouse → Bin Locations). It asks for confirmation first, stating what the pass rewrites and what it leaves untouched, and afterwards reports how many bins were numbered and how many were left pinned. Where the codes explained too little of the warehouse, it reports that nothing was written and names the share they covered.

Tip

The Walk order column in the bin list (Stockly → Warehouses → warehouse → Bin Locations) shows the number each bin carries. A column that is empty everywhere means the codes could not be read; a column that is empty for a few bins means that those bins are sorted to the end of the walk until the next recalculation.

Setting a stop number by hand

A stop number can be fixed so that recalculation never overwrites it. Such a bin is excluded from renumbering and is not counted when the readability of the codes is assessed. A lock icon next to the number in the Walk order column marks a bin that was set by hand.

There are two ways to set one:

• double-click the row in the bin list and type the number into the Walk order column. A number typed there pins the bin; clearing the field hands it back to the order derived from the codes;
• open the bin and use Set the walk order by hand in its form. The switch is what makes the field editable, so opening a bin that carries a derived number and saving it does not turn that number into a decision. Switching it off clears the number and releases the bin, which then has no stop of its own until the next recalculation gives it one.

A stop number is a whole number of 1 or more.

Getting to a route

Draw the bins on the floor plan. A route measures the real distance between two bins and goes around walls instead of through them, and its cost model also keeps the path away from walls and from neighbouring paths. → Floor plan, Bin locations

The route starts at the packing station of the operator, provided that the station is placed on the plan of the same floor; the station used is the one assigned to the current user, otherwise the one marked as default. Where no such station exists, the route starts at the door found on the plan.

Until the bins are drawn, the codes carry more information than they appear to: in most shops they were assigned according to the layout of the hall.

The order on printed documents

The order on the run screen is computed on the device that displays it and is not transferred to the printed documents. A print request carries the orders to be printed and the warehouse, and the document is rendered from them on the server.

The lines of a printed document are grouped and sorted by the packing print settings. Sort by accepts Name or Product number, and Sort direction accepts Ascending or Descending; out of the box the lines are sorted by name, ascending. Ordering the printed lines by the picking route is not among the available options.

The printed items sheet is the document the module treats as the pick list. It groups the same goods across the orders of the run so that one article is collected once for the whole wave. A bin location column can be added to it; where an article lies in more than one bin, the bins are listed with the largest quantity first.