Set up put wall slot reservations

00:03

As part of building a simulation for order consolidation in a fulfillment center,

00:08

you can assign orders to a specific put wall slot and direct the pick items for an order to that specific slot.

00:15

This allows you to consolidate items for an order in one place before packing them.

00:21

In the Process Flow shown, the logic is already created for the order and pick processes.

00:27

Zoom in on the Create Order and Reserve Putwall Slot section of the Order logic.

00:32

The three activities shown here are the main activities used to structure the slot reservations.

00:39

In conjunction with the activities in the process flow,

00:42

you also need to set up your storage system in the 3D model using Racks from the Warehousing section of the Library.

00:50

Here, Gravity Flow racks were used.

00:53

Racks automatically add slots to your storage system.

00:57

Click Toolbox > Storage System.

01:03

In Storage System Properties, you can set up the visualization for your racks, as well as apply other settings.

01:11

Here, click the Slot Labels tab.

01:15

Adding slot labels to the racks creates a pool of available slots; however, the slot labels are not automatically assigned to the racks.

01:24

Select a Rack in the model and then double-click it.

01:28

Expand the sections to view the different rack properties, such as Storage Object.

01:35

Here, you have the option to set the Slot Assignment Strategy to determine how slots are assigned.

01:41

For example, if you select First Slot with Space, then each item will go to the first available slot.

01:49

However, this setting does not allow you to consolidate multiple items for an order in one slot.

01:55

In this scenario, you need to build the logic to reserve a specific slot for an order,

02:01

and then assign the corresponding items to that slot as well.

02:05

Back in Storage System Properties, set the Default Value to “0”.

02:11

Name the Slot Labels “Reserved”, and assign a Color Palette, in this case, ColorPalette3.

02:20

Click OK.

02:22

Then, in the Library, under Warehousing, select Paint Slot Labels.

02:29

In Properties, select the Reserved Label.

02:34

Select the Value you want to paint.

02:37

In this case, the slots are already painted with the 0 value.

02:42

Select 1 and set the Mode to Paint Individual Slots.

02:49

Then, paint the slots directly in the model using your cursor.

02:53

Adjust the Mode as needed to more efficiently paint slots.

02:58

For example, you can Paint All Slots in Same Cell or Paint All Slots at Same Level.

03:05

In this case, use Paint All Slots in Same Object, set the Value to 0, and paint the slots in the Model back to zero.

03:15

Open the Process Flow again.

03:19

In the Order logic, after the order arrives and a size is applied, you can identify and assign a slot to the order.

03:27

To do so, use a Find Slot activity from the Warehousing section of the Library.

03:33

Here, the activity is called Find a Random Slot in a Random Putwall.

03:38

The Query is set to “WHERE Reserved is 0 ORDER BY RAND() ASC”.

03:47

This finds a random slot with a Reserved value of zero.

03:52

The activity then assigns a label to each order token that references that slot, with “token.slot”.

04:01

Next, use an Assign Labels activity, here called Locate Slot Putwall Location, to add two additional labels to the order token.

04:10

The first label, Putwall, has a value of “token.slot.as(Storage.Slot).storageObject.

04:21

This looks at the slot label and declares it a Storage Slot.

04:25

The code then looks for the corresponding storage object, or put wall, for that slot.

04:31

Select each put wall in the model.

04:34

In Properties, under Labels, you can see that a Station Number is assigned to each put wall.

04:42

Back in the activity, the second label, StationNum, has a value of “token.Putwall.Station”.

04:50

This is set up to find the Station Number for the assigned put wall and apply the corresponding label to the order token.

04:57

The Station Number for the order token is likewise applied to the picks when they are created in the pick logic,

05:03

ensuring the pick items exit at the appropriate station for the order slot.

05:08

Run the model.

05:10

Select an item in the model.

05:14

In Properties, notice the Station Number.

05:17

In the model, the control point directs item flow based on this label.

05:23

For example, if a pick item has a StationNum label of 2, then the control point sends the item to the Station 2 put wall.

05:32

Now, items will route to the appropriate put wall.

05:36

However, you also need to ensure items arrive at the correct slot for their order.

05:42

In the Pick logic, use a Custom Code activity.

05:46

Here, it is called Assign Pick to Order Slot.

05:50

Edit the Custom Code.

05:54

In this case, the code is set up by selecting the pick list options Add > Control > Warehousing > Assign a Slot (Direct).

06:06

Notice that the Item is set to “token.item”.

06:10

This matches the label in the Create Pick activity.

06:14

Back in the Custom Code activity, the Slot is set to “token.Slot” to assign the order slot to the pick token.

06:23

Finally, you need to ensure that the slot is flagged as reserved so that other orders are not assigned to the same slot.

06:31

Back in the Order logic, use an Assign Labels activity.

06:36

In this example, Flag Slot as Assigned is used to assign a label of “token.slot”

06:42

to change the “Reserved” label on the slot to a “1” when it is assigned to an order.

06:47

Look back at the Find Random Slot in Random Putwall activity.

06:52

Setting up this flag for the slot means that when a new order arrives and the Query is performed, only slots with a 0 show up.

07:01

The slots that are flagged with a 1 will be omitted from the query and cannot be reserved.

07:07

At the end of the order logic, in the Exits on Conveyor to Shipping section, another Assign Labels activity is used.

07:16

Open Flag Slot as Available.

07:19

When orders are completed, they are set up to revert the Reserved label back to a “0” to flag the slot as available again,

07:27

so that the slot can be assigned to another order.

07:31

Now that you know how to set up put wall slot reservations as part of building an order consolidation scenario,

07:38

you are ready to learn how to track items within your fulfillment center model.