In warehouse operations, understanding why Work isn’t created, either how it was desired or at all, can be painful to determine. Below are some of the common issues with work creation and how to solve and get past those issues.
Understanding the Relationship Between Location Directives and Work Templates
The first step to understanding why Work is not creating properly is to fully understand the relationship between Location Directives and Work Templates. This relationship is different depending on the Work order types.
Outbound Order Picking:
For Outbound Work order types, the following processes occurs to run through and select Location Directives and Work Templates.
- Wave is processed.
- Pick Location Directive is found.
- Temporary work lines are created.
- Work Template is identified.
- Based on the Work Template Directive Code, the Put Location Directive is found.
Inbound Work:
For Inbound Work order types, the following processes occurs to run through and select Location Directives and Work Templates.
- Receipt occurs on a mobile device.
- Temporary work lines are created.
- Work Template is identified.
- Put Location Directive is found based on directive codes.
Replenishment Work:
For the Replenishment Work order type, the following processes occurs to run through and select Location Directives and Work Templates.
- Pick Location Directive is found.
- Temporary work lines are created.
- Work Template is identified.
- Put Location Directive is found unless already determined by the Replenishment Template
- For Min/Max replenishment, a final Put cannot (generally) have a directive code.
My Order is fully reserved, but no work has been created for certain items.
In D365, there is no such thing as an unpickable location when it comes to reservation –only for work creation through Location directive. This means that an outbound order can reserve against any inventory within the warehouse if it has the same Inventory status and Variants, And is not already reserved against another outbound order.
Only inventory reserved against an Outbound order and/or Outbound work is considered Reserved when a new order is evaluating inventory. This means, inventory sitting in a location that has Putaway work, movement work, or replenishment work tied to it may still be available for Outbound order reservation.
Work Creating with Blank Locations when Location Directive Failures are Configured
If you have Location directive failures configured, but are getting work with a blank Put, it may be due to the Work order type only reviewing the Location directive failures during the Pick process.
For Outbound Work order types, the Location directive failure is only reviewed for the initial Pick when multiple Pick/Put pairs are being used. This can lead to a blank Put and subsequent second Pick to end up blank on created work instead of the work failing to create completely if no location can be found
Work Created for Locations with Cycle Count Work
When cycle count work is created, the location and all the inventory in the location is still available for reservation and pick work. The system is smart enough to know if something is removed or added to the location, even if the Cycle count work is in process or Pending review.
- Picking: If the system expects 100 but a user counts 90, and 10 units are picked, the pending count updates to 90 system count and 80 user count.
- Putaway: If the system expects 100 but a user counts 90, and 10 units are put away, the pending count updates to 110 system count and 100 user count.
If an item is short picked and Cycle count work is created, the system assumes the inventory is still there until the cycle count is completed and accepted. This means that something that is counted to zero but not yet approved (still in Pending review), work will continue to get created to pick from that location.
Both of these issues can be mitigated by keeping up with Cycle count work and any Pending reviews that are necessary.
Conclusion
Understanding the nuances in how the system behaves to create work is a key step in efficiently running a warehouse using the D365 Warehouse Management module.
For further insights on how to tailor D365 SCM to your specific needs reach out to a New Arc Solutions expert to Get Started!