Work automation

An operator starts an operation at the PC, walks the hall with a tablet, returns to the bench and packs. Without rules, each of those three steps requires finding the work on a list again. A rule replaces that with a card that appears where the work is to be carried out.

Stockly → Operations → My work → Automation contains the rules.

What a rule reacts to

Four situations, and each of them is a state, not an event, which is why a device that was switched off still receives the answer once it is switched on again:

When	What it means
Work is handed to a picker	a wave has just been planned and nobody has picked from it
An operation is started	somebody has begun working it and is collecting
Collecting is done, packing begins	the operation has moved to packing
Work is waiting to be taken	a wave nobody owns — planned centrally, or given back to the pool

The first three concern work that already has an owner and are sent to that operator’s devices. The last one has no owner, so it is sent to a role in a hall instead.

Making a rule

Add rule opens five questions:

1. What happens — one of the four situations above, presented as tiles. No option is preselected; this answer determines the content of the following steps.
2. Who it is about — the three optional conditions.
3. Where it opens — the device role, whose device, and how recently it has been used.
4. How it arrives — Offer it or Open it when the device is idle, the purpose the invited device is given the work for, plus the sound and the validity window.
5. Name it — the name, the priority, Active, and a sentence that repeats the whole rule:

When: An operation is started — offer it on Aisle terminal (the same person’s devices), seen in the last 10 minutes, for 5 minutes. How: Offer it.

That sentence is what the list shows in its columns, so a rule is described identically in every place it appears. Edit reopens the same five questions with the saved answers.

Who it is about

Three conditions, all optional: Operator, Warehouse, Packing station. An empty condition means any, and all conditions that are filled in have to be met. These are the same three conditions the printing rules use.

The rule that names the most conditions takes precedence. Operator plus hall takes precedence over hall alone, regardless of the value entered in Priority; priority only decides between two rules that name equally many conditions.

Where it shows up

• the role of the device — Aisle terminal, Packing bench, Unpacking bench, or any;
• whose device — the same person’s, or any device in that warehouse (the only applicable answer for work that has no owner yet);
• Seen in the last … minutes — a device that has not been used for longer is treated as switched off, and work sent to it would be lost.

Note

Three behaviours are not configurable. A device is not invited to work it already has open. Work without an owner is offered only to somebody who is not in the middle of another task. And work is never opened automatically on a device where it already belongs, as described below.

How it arrives

Offer it displays a card in the corner of the workstation with one button. Open it when the device is idle opens the work automatically, but only on a station with nothing on it: a screen holding a question, a parcel or a planning run receives the card instead.

In both cases the operation opens in a dialogue on this page, not on another screen. The desk remains where it is, and closing the dialogue returns it to waiting for the next scan.

Open it when the device is idle only ever moves work towards its step. Collecting belongs to an aisle terminal, packing to a packing station, receiving to unpacking, so a wave held at the desk opens automatically on the aisle tablet, while a wave being collected on the tablet does not open automatically at the desk. Without that boundary, any idle station with such a rule would take the run back a few seconds after it started, because An operation is started is exactly that moment.

Opening the work this way also hands the lead to that device from the first second: the device the step belongs to takes the run from a device that does not, without anybody pressing Continue here. Otherwise the rule would open a read-only view. Which device leads is described in Which device is working on it.

Offer it has no such boundary, because a card requires a person to accept it, and taking over work that somebody else has open is the normal hand-over.

What the invited device is for

This device’s part answers a question that nothing else in the run can answer. A tablet used only to walk the aisle and a tablet meant to complete the job require different endings, and the run itself cannot distinguish between them, so the answer belongs to the rule that sent the work to that device.

• The whole run — this device finishes it is the default and changes nothing;
• Collecting only — hand the run back afterwards ends the tablet’s part at the aisle. When the operator presses Next: pack, the run goes to the bench they walked back to and the tablet’s screen closes automatically, so no second device is left displaying work that nobody is performing.

The hand-back requires a target: with no other screen on the run, the tablet continues and packs it, rather than leaving the operator in front of a desk that is not showing the order. → Closing a run

Play a sound is independent of both options. A tablet lying face down does not display the card, and the sound is then the only signal that reaches the operator.

Caution

Browsers do not play sound on a tab that has never been clicked in. On a kiosk that has been used, the sound works; on one that has just been switched on, the card appears without sound until the first tap. The card is always displayed; the sound is an addition and never the only channel.

Valid for … minutes ends the offer. After that time the work waits on My work, where it was available the whole time.

Where the card appears

On the workstation screen, and only there. That is the page a device waiting for work stays on all shift: it is already listening to the scanner, it already knows which device it is, and it is the only screen where automatically opening work does not interrupt another task.

A device asks for work every five seconds while its screen is on, and stops asking the moment the tab is hidden or the moment it starts packing something.

A starting set

An empty list offers Use the suggested rules. It opens a dialogue with three boxes, all empty at the start. Tick the ones that match the process in the hall, and Create selected rules creates exactly those:

1. An operation is started → Aisle terminal, the same person’s devices → Offer it;
2. Collecting is done, packing begins → Packing bench, the same person’s devices → Offer it;
3. Work is waiting to be taken → Aisle terminal, any device in that warehouse → Offer it, with a sound.

Each of them becomes an ordinary rule that can be edited or switched off later. No rules are created by installing or updating the module; they are created only by this action.