Back to the release learning center

Introduction

Previously, when a shipment line failed allocation during waving, the warehouse worker had to manually identify these lines and move them to a new wave. This process has now been made more efficient by the 10.0.37 release, which introduced Auto add shipments to a wave batch job, and the new release of 10.0.40, which includes monitoring the status of the failed shipment lines through the Failed Shipment lines page.  

As this process used to be time-consuming, we think it will be very efficient for many businesses; therefore, we will describe in this blog the configuration and behavior of this feature.

Configuration

This functionality only requires configuring the Auto add shipment to waves batch job. The batch job can be set up by navigating to Warehouse management > Waves > Auto-add shipments to Wave.

Two parameters are shown on the batch job screen. First, the number of retries, which is a fixed number that cannot be changed. This number specifies the amount the batch job will try to add a shipment line to a new wave. And secondly, filters can be set for the specific shipment lines that need to run.

The batch job can be set up to run based on the business needs. We would recommend running this batch job before the wave processing is run.

(Re)waving behavior

The behavior of the re-waving process is as follows:

• Sales orders or Transfer order is created and items are physically reserved.
• Order is released to the warehouse, and shipment is created and added to a wave.
• Process the Wave, two scenarios can occur:
  • A shipment (line) is successfully processed, and warehouse work is created,
  • A shipment (line) fails during the wave processing – When this happens, the system removes the failed shipment (line) from the wave and continues to process the rest of the wave. This happens when there is no sufficient picking location to be found, for example, because:
    • Items are available in the Inbound receiving location but have not yet arrived at the picking location.
    • The item is at the production output location and has not yet moved to the picking location.

Fig.1 – Item A0002 is available at the receiving location (RECV) but not yet on a picking location.

• The system creates a record in the Failed shipment lines table for the work required to process the failed shipment. This table also shows the associated error messages, error type, wave ID, and number of retries.
  • Note: The Failed shipment lines form only includes the lines that failed during the waving process. The form does not include credit management fails or other order holds. When an order is on hold, this order will be blocked from release to warehouse and will not be added to the shipment and associated wave. Therefore, the shipment line will not be created on this form. 

Fig.2 – Shipment line record is created on the Failed shipment lines table.

• Run Auto add shipments to Wave batch job. The system will go over the failed shipment lines table and search for failed shipment lines to add to a new wave for processing.

Fig.3 –  Auto add shipment to wave batch job

• The Failed shipment line records are added to a new wave based on the wave template settings.
  • Note: When the wave has been setup to process at release to warehouse, the Auto add shipments to wave batch job will add the failed shipment (lines) to a wave and process the wave. When the wave is not processed during release to warehouse, the shipment lines will be added to a new wave and the next run of the wave processing will take the shipment (line) into account and attempt to generate warehouse work for the shipment line.
• Wave is processed, where:
  • Either warehouse work has been successfully completed for this shipment line, or,
  • The line cannot be allocated again. The number of retries will be increased by one, and the line can be added to the next batch job run.
    • Note: Failed shipment lines will be added to a new wave up to five times. After this, the lines will not be considered for the next batch job run. These lines should be manually solved and added to a new wave.

Failed shipment lines clean up job

A Wave processing removed shipments cleanup job can be scheduled to clean all the failed shipment lines that cannot be allocated. The job can be configured by navigating to Warehouse management > Outbound Waves > Wave processing removed shipments cleanup.

Some parameters can be set to specify the rules around what records need to be clean up:

• Cleanup rewave threshold - This number defines the number of retries the cleanup job allows for a shipment line before it is removed. For example, when a shipment line has 3 retries, this record can be cleaned up and will not be considered by the next Auto add shipments to wave batch job, even though this batch job will take a maximum of 5 retries into account.
• Last update older than a given number – This field lets you specify the maximum number of days that a clean-up job allows a shipping line to remain on the Failed shipment line table. All lines older than this specified number will be removed from the table.

This batch job can be scheduled based on the business needs.

Conclusion

This feature is a helpful introduction for businesses with a high volume of shipments that must be managed. Identifying the shipment (lines) and adding them to a new wave was very time-consuming; with this feature, that job has been reduced to a minimum, where only lines that have failed over five times need to be manually handled.

Check out the Microsoft Learn page for more information about this feature.