Understanding Available to Pick Status on Fulfilments

Overview

The Available to pick status light for a Fulfilment has three statuses which are designed to help you know when you can pick the stock required for the Fulfilment.

This field is an aggregate status, meaning that it is made up from the Available to Pick statuses of all the underlying line items that are contained on the Fulfilment.

Let’s look at the three possible statuses that the Available to Pick status at Fulfilment Level can have, and how these are made up relative to its underlying line items.

Fulfilment Level: Available to Pick Status

At the Fulfilment level, the Available to Pick status light can have one of three statuses

Red:This means that none of the underlying line items on the Fulfilment are Available to Pick.
for example, in the below screen-shot for, the Available to Pick Status for the Fulfilment [annotated as (1) ] is Red, because each of the underlying SKU’s has an the Available to Pick status [annotated as (2) ] of Red.
In short, no stock can be picked for any of the required items on the Fulfilment.

 

Ambermeaning, that one or more of the underlying line items can be picked, or part picked.
That is, one or more of the underlying line items have an Available to Pick Status of Amber or Green.

 :

Green:meaning, that all of the underlying line items can be picked in full.
That is, the Available to Pick status for each SKU on the Fulfilment is Green.


 

Now that we know how the Fulfilment level status is set, let’s look at how the underlying line level status is derived.

Fulfilment Line Item Level: How Available to Pick Status is calculated.

It is important to understand how the Available to Pick Status light at the line level is set.
It is based on a comparison of the physical available balance of the SKU relative to the Quantity of the SKU required on the fulfilment (the To Be Given amount)

• If the physical available balance for a SKU is equal to or in excess of the To Be Given figure then its Available to Pick light is set as Green.

• If the physical available balance of a SKU is greater than zero, but less than the To Be Given figure, then the Available to Pick light is set as Amber.

• If the physical available balance of a SKU is zero, then the Available to Pick light is set as Red
  
  

Let’s include the To Be Given, and Physically available figures on an example Fulfilment to illustrate this:-

We can see in the above screen-shot, that the Quantity Ordered (1)  is 20 for each of the SKU’s.

However in terms of physical availability (2)

• Only 10 is available for the first SKU 1, so it’s Available to Pick (3) status is set as Amber
• For the second SKU , the available balance is 20, which meets the required amount, so its Available to Pick (3) status is set as Green;
• For the third SKU, there is zero physically available so its Available to Pick status (3) is set as Red.
  

As there are one or more amber statuses at the line level, the aggregate Available to Pick Status (4) light for the Fulfilment is set to Amber.

It is important to understand the following:-

1. The Physical Available balance represents the stock balance within stock locations in the warehouse

2. Quantities held physically in stock locations are not reserved as such for a Fulfilment, until they are actually picked.

3. Once picked, the physical available balance will debit by the amount that is picked.

4. This means that the physical balance and therefore the available to pick status for a SKU dynamically changes as it is picked by other fulfilments.

The next section exemplifies this.

Dynamic Nature of Available to Pick status

Following on from above, consider the following situation:-

• SKU 406776 has the following stock records:-
• 10 physically available in the Warehouse;
• 10 expected from an open purchase order
• Two fulfilments (Delivery One and Delivery Two) are created, each of which has a requirement for 10 of SKU 406776
• (This is a valid scenario, as  strokeone allows for the amount of a SKU ordered on a Fulfilment up to a maximum of the sum of the expected and physically available balances.)
• To Be Given figure of 10 is entered in each of the fulfilments and is allocated.
  
  

As the Physical available balance for SKU 406776 is 10 at this point, each fulfilment compares its To Be Given figure of 10 versus the Physically available balance of 10, and therefore the Available to Pick status for each is set as Green.

Looking at the system we see that both Fulfilments show that they are Available to Pick.

Now, consider that someone picks the 10 available stock of the SKU for the Fulfilment delivery one.

The following updates occur on this fulfilment:-

• The Picked status for Fulfilment Delivery one now updates to Green as the item has been fully picked

• The 10 picked debits down the Physically available balance for SKU 406776, resulting in a Physical available balance of zero.

Crucially, as Fulfilment Delivery One has picked 10, the physical available balance which can be used by any other fulfilment is now zero

This is evidenced on Fulfilment Delivery Two. For this fulfilment, its To Be Given figure of 10 is now compared to a zero physical available balance, and thus it is set as Red as it cannot physically be picked.

Looking at the Fulfilment List Layout, we can see the status of both Fulfilments together, and see how picking the physically available balance of the SKU for Delivery One affected the Available to Pick status for Delivery Two

Summary

The situation can be summarised as follows:-

Related Topics

Fulfilment Layout

Picking items for a Fulfilment