Inventory will create move orders and allocations for material requirements on a job or a schedule. The component pick release process supports discrete jobs, repetitive schedules, lot-based jobs, and flow schedules.
Describing picking for manufacturing within Oracle Warehouse Management
Explaining manufacturing component pick release
Explaining manufacturing picking tasks
Explaining opportunistic crossdocking for manufacturing
Explaining manufacturing label printing
Explaining paper-assisted manufacturing picking
Explaining change management
Oracle Warehouse Management enables you to utilize the Rules Engine and the Task Dispatching Engine to pick component requirements for jobs and schedules. Four manufacturing modes are supported with this process:
WIP job
Repetitive schedule
Lot-based job
Flow schedule
Instead of using a paper-based report to direct operators to retrieve material for the job, picking for manufacturing enables operators to be sent directly to the best material for the job and for the picking transactions to be recorded directly on the mobile device. Manufacturing picking also supports opportunistic crossdocking and label printing.
The bill of material, routing, job, and schedule are set up as indicated in the respective users guides; no change in manufacturing setup is required to use these features. Instead, the component picking process is triggered by using a new desktop form, called Component Pick Release. Different forms for each of the four supported manufacturing modes are provided and described in the respective users guides.
Once a job or schedule has been pick released and material has been allocated, the allocated material cannot be used for any other transaction. The allocations can be viewed or updated on the Transact Move Orders form, and the tasks can be viewed or updated on the Warehouse Control Board.
Migration to task based picking for manufacturing is optional. The process is triggered by Component Pick Release of the job or schedule. If pick release is not performed, then an organization can continue to use the component picking process in place unchanged.
Selecting jobs and schedules to pick release in a warehouse-enabled organization is no different than the process in an inventory organization. However, once the process is triggered, different actions are taken by the system.
In a warehouse-enabled organization, component pick release uses the Oracle Warehouse Management Rules Engine to allocate the material required for the job. As part of the component pick release process, tasks are also created and assigned a task type for automatic dispatching at a later point. Backordered components are available for re-release, or can be crossdocked if crossdocking is enabled for the organization.
Once the push or pull allocation has been made via Component Pick Release, the Rules Engine is used again to determine the task type. These tasks are then dispatched to qualified operators who sign on with the required equipment, in the same way that replenishment and sales order tasks are dispatched. For a detailed description of the differences between how Push and Pull supply types are treated see: Defining Pick Slip Grouping Rules
You can load the material to their equipment and then drop the task at a later point, or the task may be loaded and dropped in a single step. The load and drop process are identical to that for a sales order requirement, except that a push requirement is dropped to a job instead of a supply subinventory. You use the same methodologies to pick manufacturing tasks, as you do outbound tasks. You can perform a manufacturing task by selecting manufacturing tasks from the task menu, or by accepting any task from the Interleaved Tasks menu. For information on performing picking tasks see: Describing Pick Methodologies.
If crossdocking is enabled for the organization, then you can crossdock newly received material directly to backordered component requirements. The system considers supply from expected receipts such as purchased orders, internal requisitions, and LPN-based completion, and considers demand from both push and pull component requirements. The system crossdocks a push requirement directly to the job, and a pull requirement to the supply subinventory and locator. For more information on opportunistic crossdocking see, Opportunistic Crossdocking.
To configure crossdocking for manufacturing, you must define several parameters on the Organization Parameters window.
Oracle Warehouse Management can print labels during the picking process. Labels will be printed when the operator performs the pick load if label types have been assigned to the WIP Pick Load business flow. Similarly, labels can be printed during pick drop if label types have been assigned to WIP Pick Drop. Note that these are different business flows than those used for sales order label printing, because they can print different label types. Specifically, the WIP business flows can print the WIP Contents label, which includes details about the job, schedule, routing, operation, and department.
You can also use the Oracle Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to print labels for serialized and non-serialized jobs and automatically print labels as part of move or completion transactions.
A warehouse can use paper-directed picking if operators should not be automatically dispatched tasks by the system. The Move Order Pick Slip report includes a task id. Rather than navigating to "Accept Next Task" on the task menu, the operator can instead select "Manual Pick" and enter this task id. The specified task will then get dispatched directly to that operator, bypassing any restrictions via task type or required equipment, as well as any sequencing logic.
If the job or schedule is cancelled, then all the pending and queued tasks are cancelled and the allocations are relieved. Tasks that have been loaded to an operators equipment can be unloaded or dropped if the components have supply type of pull, but must be unloaded if they have supply type of push. Tasks that have already been completed require user intervention to return the components from the job or schedule. Additional support is also provided when the component requirements on the job or schedule change due to a change in the quantity of final assemblies to produce, or a change in the material requirements for that particular job. Please refer to the Oracle Inventory User's Guide for additional details on this type of change management.