The Material handling equipment interface (MHEI, or as it’s more commonly known MHAX) is a software framework connecting external automated material handling equipment (MHE) systems to a warehouse that is managed by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management’s WMS.
MHAX represents the middleware layer between the WMS and various MHE systems. MHAX acts as an underlying platform orchestrating communication between the systems, ensuring that warehousing work instructions are delivered to the designated executor. It performs reliable communication between material handling equipment and the WMS.
MHAX is integrated directly into the D365 WMS as a module within D365. It’s a fantastic framework for what it’s intended to do: but why does it exist as a module within D365? The answer here is simple: when MHAX was developed, the goal was to further simplify the IT landscape. Why introduce another layer of abstraction in our material handling integrations if we don’t need to? Rather than having to build logic that corresponds to warehouse work in a 3rd party application, it’s embedded directly in D365, ready for consumption by an external WCS or MHE software controller. The solution itself is incredibly configurable, allowing you to adapt the framework to a variety of MHE.
Best practices for integrating automation
There are several things to keep in mind when integrating automation. We’ve developed a few best practices for integrating automation with the D365 WMS:
- Evaluate your automation strategy before you even START your implementation
- Align how you represent your warehouse workers and your automation in the WMS
- Keep high-density storage solution locations out of D365
Evaluate your strategy
Before you even start the implementation of the D365 WMS you should be evaluating your warehouse processes end-to-end. From inbound to inventory counting to outbound, and within that all the capital expenses and physical components of your warehouse: racking, forklifts, mobile devices, and your automation. Ask yourself the question: why is this here? Does it make sense in the capacity that it’s implemented, or are we introducing an unnecessary complexity by forcing an integration?
It's happened before and it will happen again that we’ve seen warehouses with automation performing an unnecessary task. AGVs and conveyors are often great ways to automate simple movements – but is it there for novelty, or is it really benefitting you? Maybe an AGV moving a pallet from inbound stage to the mezzanine putaway area is taking away a movement, but does the cost of the AGV, the integration, and the ongoing support of that integration to the automation outweigh the cost of a worker driving a forklift?
Workers and robots unite!
In most warehouse automation cases, the automation exists as a subcomponent of a particular process. Take a simple reception process as an example. Pallets are unloaded from a truck at a particular unloading point, subsequently staged at an inbound staging lane based on the putaway zone of the goods, and finally moved to the proper putaway area for storage. An AGV might be a good solution for moving the pallets from the unloading point to the proper staging lane. If we think about the D365 work, the work could be constructed as a pick from reception, a put to unloading, a pick from unloading, a put to staging, a pick from staging, and a put to the putaway location.
If we structure the work in such a way where the automation’s task fits into the pick/put structure of the work, we have a ton of flexibility in how we are building our work templates and structuring our work. Not only does this strategy help with configuration but it helps with our data reporting strategy as well. We don’t have to do anything special to look at automation tasks, because it’s baked right into our work structure. This is a simple example and it can of course get more complicated, but a good approach to keep in mind always. Don’t overcomplicate the automation work structure if you don’t have to.
Be smart with your high-density storage solutions
High-density storage solutions are exploding in popularity, and rightfully so. Mini-load and pallet ASRS solutions do a great job of optimizing warehouse space (if it suits your business processes) and reducing manual workload. And almost every one of them come with some version of their own software controller (whether it’s called/considered a WCS, WES, WMS, software controller, etc. is its own story – check out our post on this topic to get our insights into the differences between these acronyms).
What you have to decide when integrating your automation is where should the inventory lie? We have a really simple strategy when it comes to high-density storage solutions: keep the locations out of D365. In most cases, the software solution from the automation provider will have some concept of inventory storage at a location level. Use that. Don’t overcomplicate it and try to bring the locations into D365. The WMS’s locating capabilities will in almost every case be less performant than whatever the automation provider’s software can do because of one simple reason: the WMS does not know the XYZ coordinate layout of the high-density storage solution.
Keep it at a high level and black box your inventory. The ASRS is a single location in D365 and the software controller knows the rest. Your inventory synchronization requirements become simpler and the automation will be more performant.
Now there are instances where this strategy isn’t so simple and we have run across this before. It may be necessary to build out your own location-level logic. But think long and hard before you decide to bring pallet- or tote-level dimensions (location, license plate, etc.) into D365 from your high-density storage solution.
Use cases
We’ve prepared a couple of high-level use cases to demonstrate how MHAX can help facilitate the implementation and integration of automation into the WMS:
- Mini-load AS/RS with mixed-item containers, two conveyors and a pick & place robotic arm.
- Picking from a vertical storage tower and moving to a pack station via a multi-tier transport AMR.
Scenario #1 – Mini-load AS/RS
Consider the first scenario: a mini-load AS/RS has containers with mixed items in the containers. There is a conveyor integrated into the AS/RS which brings containers out to a picking position and then shuffles them back into storage once picking is complete. A pick & place robotic arm exists at the picking position which uses AI-guided camera recognition to identify the item which needs to be picked. It picks the item and delivers it to a destination container on the opposite conveyor lane. Once the pick & place robotic arm has completed all the picks, the destination container is conveyed down the line where a worker unloads the container from the outfeed lane, palletizes it, and moves it to an outbound area.
Lots of automation going on here, but again the WMS work flow could be relatively simple. It might be able to look something like the below:
Work is created for the destination container. Each individual pick line is interfaced via MHAX to the ASRS and the totes are brought out sequentially guided by the ASRS’ logic. As the robotic pick & place arm performs the picks, the picks in the WMS are individually registered against the work. Finally as the destination tote is fully picked, the container is moved along the line and the worker is able to finalize the work unit(s) on the pallet (say through grouping the work) via a movement from the outfeed lane to the outbound staging area.
Scenario #2 – Multi-tier transport AMR
Now let’s consider another scenario, again with two components of automation: a vertical storage tower (VST) and a multi-tier transport autonomous mobile robot (AMR).
A worker is performing picks via a mobile device from the VST and is placing the picked items onto a shelf on a multi-tier AMR. Once the worker has performed all the picks necessary for that order or group of orders, the AMR transfers the goods to a packing station elsewhere in the warehouse. A worker at the pack station unloads the goods from the AMR and begins to pack them into outbound containers.
The movement of the AMR here might be an optimal scenario linked with the VST as VSTs aren’t particularly quick when identifying the next tray. This might even be a better setup with the worker picking from multiple VSTs at a time. In any case, the above scenario might be able to be solved as follows:
In this case the WMS is using cluster picking. Several work units are created simultaneously: Work1, Work2 and Work3. As the work is created a request for the picking line on the work is transmitted to the VST and the requisite tray within the VST is identified and presented to the picker. The picker performs a (cluster) pick to pick the first pick line and the mobile device instructs them to put the item to one of the shelves on the AMR. The worker completes the picks for Work2 and Work3 in the same fashion, and as Work3 is picked the worker is instructed to perform the put to the AMR. Once the AMR put is executed, a message is transmitted via MHAX from D365 to instruct the AMR to begin its pre-defined movement to the packing station. As the AMR arrives to the packing station the worker at the packing station unloads the goods and manually confirms to the AMR that it may return. The pick and put are automatically executed from the AMR to the pack station, the cluster is broken, and the worker is able to pack the goods.
Conclusion
D365 WMS is a strong WMS in its own right. What takes any warehouse to the next level is automation, and using MHAX in combination with the WMS enables you to integrate automation in a much smoother fashion than previously possible. Hopefully this article has opened the doors to the possibilities that exist: yes, it is possible to integrate complex automation (and more than just one component) in your D365 WMS implementation.
Of course with any WMS and automation implementation, the devil is in the details, and complexity can lie in unexpected places. That’s what InterRadish is here for. Reach out to us to help you guide your automation program in the right direction: from start to finish, or to validate certain choices along the way.
