Setting Up the Pick, Pack, and Pass Process

You use this function to coordinate picking, packing, and the transportation of products in different activity areas of your warehouse. For example, you transport products from one activity area to another using a conveyor belt. From an organizational point of view, an activity area can correspond to an aisle for which a warehouse worker is responsible. When the warehouse worker has picked a WO in an area, the goods are passed to the next area.

The movement from one activity area to the other can be done by an automatic conveyor system. There may also be pick-to-light systems in the various zones to support the picking process within the zone.

You can use pick, pack, and pass only in an RF environment. The process flow is the same as for standard RF picking.

The destination storage bins are different when using pick, pack, and pass in comparison to standard RF picking. In pick, pack, and pass, warehouse workers pass the product from activity area to activity area until it arrives at the destination storage bin.

You can use a system-controlled pick, pack, and pass function or a user-controlled pick, pack, and pass function.

With this setting, the system specifies the sequence for processing the WOs and corresponding pick HUs.

It creates a higher-level WO that contains all the WOs that have been created. Only the first WO in the sequence is active; all other WOs are inactive. The sequence in which the system orders the WOs corresponds to the sequence that you have defined in Customizing for the activity areas in the WO creation rules.

1. During WO creation, the pick HU determination determines the suitable pick HUs for all WTs of the WO.

2. The system checks the WO type. If you activated the pick, pack, and pass function, the system creates a higher-level WO that contains multiple WOs sorted by activity area. The system only passes on the standard WOs to resource management in SAP EWM.

With this setting, the system creates the WOs and the corresponding pick HUs the same as for the system-controlled pick, pack, and pass function. However, all created warehouse orders are active, and no sequence for processing them exists. The user takes a warehouse order that is valid for a specific activity area.

Each picking zone must be mapped as an individual activity area. Additionally, the activity areas must be joined, and for the system-driven option they must be in the required sort sequence.

If you work with the system-driven method, you have to define which bins represent the start point and end point for each picking zone.

You need a WO creation rule that supports the top WO creation for the pick, pack, and pass process.

The creation categories for this are as follows:

• System-driven: The sequence of the WOs in the top WO is determined according to the sort sequence of the assigned in the configuration settings for joining the activity areas.

• User-driven: The sequence is manually determined during the execution, which means it can also be done by the material flow system (MFS).

If you use pick, pack, and pass, the system creates a higher-level WO that contains the pick HUs for all WTs that are to be created, which you pick one after the other. The warehouse worker also receives the WO created for an activity area, together with its warehouse tasks.

The warehouse workers pick in the three activity areas PP01, PP02, and PP03 in a system-controlled way using pick, pack, and pass.

1. The system creates a higher-level warehouse order containing several warehouse tasks for the three activity areas PP01, PP02, and PP03, and determines the pick HUs for all warehouse tasks.

2. It then distributes the warehouse tasks across the three activity areas.

3. Each of the three warehouse workers receives their own warehouse order.

4. The first warehouse worker takes the pick HU from the start point of the first activity area.

5. The worker performs picking and drops the pick HU at the end point of the activity area.

6. The pick HU is moved from the end point of the activity area to the start point of the next activity area.

7. The process is repeated from step 4. When it comes to the final activity area (PP03), the worker puts the pick HU in the original destination bin, such as the goods issue area, instead of in the end point of the activity area.

   Note

   Usually, you would not want the worker from the last activity area to move to the goods issue area, the worker should also drop the pick HU at the end point. To achieve this, you would use layout-oriented storage control.