Directed Replenishment
- DATASCOPE WMS
Replenishment / Directed Replenishment / Replenishment Release [REP001]
Replenishment, the process of restocking inventory, is a crucial aspect of warehouse management. It involves moving products from bulk storage or reserve areas to pick locations or other areas where the products are needed to fulfil orders. The goal of replenishment is to ensure that there is always enough stock on hand to meet demand while minimizing excess inventory and maximizing space utilization within the warehouse. Effective replenishment processes, which you play a vital role in, are critical for maintaining accurate inventory levels, optimizing order fulfilment, and ensuring timely customer delivery.
DATASCOPE WMS has two replenishment modules to assist warehouses with the replenishment process.
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Review of Replenishment Modules
The replenishment system in DATASCOPE WMS has two main modules. One is a simple replenishment module to move stock from a bulk area to a pick face location. The second module is a full directed replenishment system that can generate various replenishment orders based on advanced calculations.
Simple Replenishment (Pickface Replenishment Release)
The stock can be replenished in a single-step mode, where the users scan it from the bulk bin location and directly move it to the pick face bin location. This module is generally used within smaller warehouses with just a few pick faces that must be replenished.
The Pickface Replenish Review screen then tracks progress and marks replenishment tasks as CREATED, PICKING, and COMPLETE.
For more information on the Simple Replenishment module, refer to the FASTTRACK WMS Pick face Replenishment Process.
Directed Replenishment (Replenishment Release)
The directed replenishment module is far more complex. This module starts with a custom calculation built into core DATASCOPE PREMIUM WMS logic. As such, the actual rules to generate replenishment orders are endless. The user can quickly build advanced replenishment calculations by selecting various filters by warehouse, warehouse area, or stock code product class.
Like the Sales order wave releasing screen, a review screen allows the Replenishment Manager to review replenishment lines in logical groupings and release them in waves.
Auto-allocation logic can be applied to all lines. The process applies the preset stock allocation rules to find the most optimal stock to reserve. Once the lines have reserved stock from the bulk locations, the screen can be filtered by logical grouping before releasing Replenishment pick slips in waves.
The process output will be Replenishment pick slips, which can be picked as if they were Sales Order or Job pick slips but are instead used to top up the Pickface bins.
For example, the manager may sort the replenishment orders by bulk bin Area, Zone, or even Aisle and then release multiple picking slips for each grouping. So, if the release were done at the Aisle level, we would end up with a separate picking slip by Aisle.
This picking process applies full stock reservation logic, which manages stock availability in the bulk bin locations and ensures that the stock is not taken for a customer or another replenishment order.
Picked replenishment stock is moved to the destination area (Warehouse or pick face), and the standard replenishment putaway process is used to scan the stock into the destination bins.
Setting up your pickface bins
To continue with the replenishment process, you must ensure you have pickface bins set first. For more information on setting up your pickface bins and the rules governing the calculations, refer to Pickface Bin Setup
Pickface Replenishment Service
The Pickface Replenishment Service automatically generates replenishment tasks. It is part of the DATASCOPE Core services and should already be running. Please confirm whether this service is running.
Open DATASCOPE WMS
From the Main Menu, browse to Replenishment / Simple Replenishment / Pickface Replenishment Review.
In the top right-hand corner, you will see an indication of whether the service is running or not.
For more information on the Pickface Replen Service, refer to Configuring the Pickface Replen Service.
Allocation Rules
Before looking at the Directed Replenishment module and releasing orders into the warehouse, it is important to understand the rules associated with allocating stock in the warehouse. DATASCOPE WMS has been built with specific stock allocation rules that can be applied. Alternatively, a custom rule can be selected and written into the software. Typically, the Replenishment Auto Reservation plugin will be used for this.
For more information on developing these custom rules, refer to the Plugin Customization User Guide.
A typical simple rule would be as follows. On the release of the order, take each sales order line and identify if the user should pick a full pallet for this line. If so, allocate the oldest pallet (or most suitably placed pallet or smallest pallet or less than pallet size) and check again. If a second pallet can be allocated, then proceed to do this. This pallet would be taken first from a block stack area rather than a normal bulk area of the warehouse. Once the order line drops to less than a pallet quantity, allocate full carton quantities from bulk areas.