Directed Putaway and Directed Picking

Put-away

Put-away is normally the process of moving received inventory from the dock, kitting area, or production department to a storage area. The put-away process is also used to relocate inventory within the warehouse and to replenish dedicated storage area with inventory from a reserve storage area. Any time inventory is being placed in a storage area it is being put away. There are two types of Put-away 

Un-Directed Put-away.

In this type of Put-away Operator decides the location and manually put an Inventory to the locations. Identifying appropriate location is tedious and often leads to inefficiency in warehousing processes. It is time consuming method and also requires man power.

Directed Put-away

In a system directed put-away system finds appropriate storage location based on velocity, storage requirements (refrigerated, hazardous, wire storage system, etc.), and usage requirements. Often hand held terminals are used in directed putaway.

Velocity is how often an item in a specific package configuration (most often called

package type) is picked to satisfy sales, transfer, kitting, or production orders. Some

examples of package types are carton, pallet etc.,. In System directed putaway (based on velocity) fast moving products are stored in bins that are more accessible (knee to chest high near the shipping dock) and items picked less frequently in bins are stored in locations that are less accessible (up high in the back of the warehouse). This reduces travel time during picking which helps to improve picking efficiency. 

 

Picking

Picking is the process of taking an inventory from the required or suggested location. Location can be a pick-face location or a bulk storage location or a kitting area. Picking is the key process in warehousing and managing it efficiently will result in substantial cost savings.

Undirected Picking

In Un-directed Picking, the inventory required for the orders are picked manually. It heavily relies on user memory of where the items are stored. Often dedicated storage locations are used in Un-directed Picking.

Directed Picking

In directed picking, system allocates the most appropriate picking location based on predefined rules and criteria. These may be as follows.

FIFO – First In First Out

LIFO – Last In First Out

FEFO – First Expiry First Out

LEFO – Last Expiry Last Out

In WMS, Pick manager releases pick by considering certain criteria like location is available or not and what is the strategy followed for picking.