Pick waves

A wave is a group of orders batched and released to picking according to predefined criteria. Wave parameters can be set to select the orders ready for dropping. Designing pick waves is seldom based on only one parameter. Waves are defined during your implementation process to determine what criteria best fits your workflow and schedules.

Determine the time that is best suited to each warehouse. For example, individual order picking, wave picking once a day, and wave picking several times a day. Plan your waves based on the best balance of order picking efficiency, space limitations, truck loading efficiency, and customer service. For example, it might seem best to release a pick wave every hour. However, the downstream effects include bottlenecks, congestion, confusion, and timing errors with an outside carrier.

If emergency or rush orders are present, you are notified and given the chance to view them before other orders are displayed. After emergency orders are dropped or ignored, orders that match the parameters are displayed. These orders can be further sorted based on the preferred method to drop the orders. Depending on your operation, you might have a threshold on the size of wave you want to create to optimize the order fulfillment process.