This chapter covers the following topics:
Material enters the warehouse through the receiving dock and exits through the shipping dock. In some cases, the same set of dock doors could be used for both receiving and shipping. Upon receipts or prior to shipping, activities such as assembly of loads, consolidation of inventory transfers, and scheming efficient warehouse material flow occur in the staging lanes that lies in the proximity of dock doors.
There is an opportunity for logistics involving plan, control, and execution of the activities in the docks and staging area. Outbound docking logistics pertains to shipments while inbound docking logistics involves handling receipts. Docking logistics includes scheduling and assignment of dock doors to inbound receipts, outbound shipments, and associating staging lanes to receipts or shipments.
Dock management provides a form for the warehouse manager to assign dock doors to outbound trip stops, inbound unloading activities, and other activities. Dock door and staging lane associations can be established. For outbound shipments, staging lanes will be suggested for picking tasks based on dock appointment, staging lane/dock door association, and staging lane availability.
Dock door and staging lanes are modeled as locators in warehouse management. The inventory locators are classified into the following types:
Stock Locator: Inventory stock locators that are used for storing inventory.
Dock Door: Dock doors are inventory stock locators where carrier trucks could be docked.
Staging Lane: Staging Lanes serve as an interim stock locator, just before loading.
A staging lane stages material that is to be loaded to many loading docks. Similarly, a loading dock loads material staged in many staging lanes.
A multiple-to-multiple relationship between dock doors and staging lanes can be established through Dock Door to Staging Lane Assignment Form.
A default staging subinventory and default staging locator can be set for an organization from Shipping Parameters Form. This information will be used by pick release process as the last resort if staging lane can not be derived from dock appointment and staging lane is not specified during pick release.
Related Topics
Defining Stock Locators, Oracle Inventory User's Guide
Set Up Locator Parameters, Oracle Warehouse Management User's Guide
For outbound activities, during trip planning, each trip will be assigned with a dock door from which the truck will be loaded. A dock appointment can be created from Dock Assignment form for this purpose. Inbound unload activities or other activities can be scheduled to a particular dock door as well. These appointments are for informational purpose only. They do not drive any Oracle Warehouse Management functionality.
During pick release process staging lane (drop off subinventory and locator) needs to be provided to Oracle Warehouse Management allocation engine before the engine can determine the picking location. Following is the logic for deriving a drop off staging lane.
In Release Pick Waves form, staging subinventory and locator will be defaulted from shipping parameters and the user can override it to any other staging lane. If this is specified then it will be used for allocation. If the user leaves these fields blank, the system will try to derive the staging lane based on dock appointment, given the fact a dock appointment has been created for the trip of this wave. If a dock appointment does not exist, or a trip has not even been created, or for any other reasons the staging lane cannot be derived from a dock appointment, the default staging lane in Shipping Parameters will be used.
If a trip has been created for this wave, and a dock appointment has been created for this trip, the staging lane can be derived from the dock appointment. The following is an example of the logic:
First of all if the staging lane has been previously assigned for this trip, the same staging lane will be used. If the trip has not been associated with any staging lane yet, and a dock appointment has been created for this trip, the staging lanes associated with this dock door become candidates. The system will search for a staging lane that has not been assigned to any trip through dock appointment and return this staging lane. If all of the staging lanes have been associated with trips, the system will return the staging lane that will be finished loading the earliest.
Dock door and staging lanes are modeled as locators in Oracle Warehouse Management. Locator type can be specified in Stock Locators form under Setup > Warehouse Configurations > Warehouses manual.
Refer to the Oracle Warehouse Management User's Guide for detail on setting up locators.
The multiple-to-multiple relationship between dock doors and staging lanes can be established through the Dock Door to Staging Lane Assignment form under Setup > Warehouse Configurations > Warehouses manual.
Refer to the Oracle Warehouse Management User's Guide for detail on setting up Staging Lane - Dock Door Association.
Default staging subinventory and default staging locator for an organization can be set from the Shipping Parameters form under Setup > Warehouse Configurations > Warehouses manual.
Refer to the Oracle Warehouse Management User's Guide for detail on setting up default staging lanes.
Dock appointments can be created for outbound trips from the Dock Appointment form under Outbound Logistics.
When Oracle Transportation Management is integrated with Oracle Warehouse Management, you can optimize dock door usage, ensure dock doors are synchronized with the transportation plan, and stage material accurately to the correct dock door. For information on synchronizing dock appointments with Oracle Transportation Management, see the Oracle Transportation Management Integrating Oracle Transportation Management with Oracle E-Business Suite guide.
A sales order or wave can be released through the Release Pick Waves form under Outbound Logistics Manual. On the Inventory tab, the Default Staging Subinventory and Default Locator will be populated from shipping parameters after specifying the Warehouse field. The user can override these fields or clear them. If these fields have values, picking tasks being generated will honor these values as drop-off locators. This can be verified though the WMS Control Board. If these fields are left blank, the drop off locator will be derived from one of the staging lanes associated with the dock door that has been scheduled for this trip. If there is not any dock appointment scheduled for this trip, the drop off location will be defaulted to the shipping parameters.
Related Topics
Setting Up Dock Door Appointments, Oracle Warehouse Management User's Guide
Releasing Sales Orders for Picking, Oracle Shipping Execution User's Guide