Calming The Chaos – How To Get Everyone Moving To The Same Beat With Location Directives In Dynamics 365

To an outsider, a warehouse may look like chaos but the insiders know that a well-run warehouse is actually a carefully choreographed dance.  It can be a challenge to acclimate new staff members into the dance so they don’t throw off the rhythm.  Enter Location Directives.

Location Directives (Warehouse Management>Setup>Location Directives) give specific instructions at the location for workers.  They are the choreography for the warehouse.

Location Directive Header

Location Directives have a Header, Lines and Line Actions.  In the header the location directive is associated with a Work Order Type and Work Type.  Each Location Directive is associated with a specific Site and Warehouse combination.  This allows a multi-warehouse environment to have different rules set up for each warehouse.

location directive header in dynamics 365

Location Directive Lines

On the lines, there are options to pick specific quantity from specific locations, round up to a unit, locate a packing unit or allow orders to split.  For example, one line can be set up to pick full box quantities (restrict by unit) and a second line can be set up to pick the remaining loose pieces (allow split).  Sequence numbers will allow set up to prioritize lines.

lines

Immediate Replenishments

New with the spring 2018 Dynamics 365 release, Location Directives can include an Immediate Replenishment.  As soon as a location directive fails to allocate inventory, the immediate replenishment will create work to replenish the location.  Using immediate replenishments allows for the limiting of the replenishment to the specific number of units needed for the wave directed to a specific location.

Once a replenishment template is set up as a Wave Demand Replenishment type it can be used on a Location Directive for an immediate replenishment.

Go to Warehouse management>Setup>Replenishment>Replenishment templates

Create a replenishment template and select Replenishment type Wave demand

replenishment templates d365

On the Location Directive lines select the replenishment template under Immediate Replenishment templates.

selecting replenishment template

Note: To use the immediate replenishments, the wave template should include the replenishment method in the selected methods for the wave.

Location Directive Actions

Finally, the Location Directive Actions specify the actions for each of the lines created.  Using the above example, the Action for the Line that is restricted by unit may use a query to specify a specific bulk location profile to pick from but Line 2 that is allowing splits may have multiple Actions allowing pick from different location types.

location directive actions

Now that the Location Directives are set up, the Warehouse Dance Team can execute the choreography of the Warehouse and keep the chaos at bay.  To read more about creating the song of the warehouse read Work Templates – The Music of the Warehouse.

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