Picking

Bring orders into the warehouse

Orders arrive from the upstream order system with customer, ship-to address, requested quantities, warehouse, priority, carrier service and ship cutoff. Credit, address, customer-request and backorder holds remain visible before work is released. This warehouse process executes accepted demand; it does not replace the upstream authority over the sales order.

Availability checks use eligible stock after existing reservations. Held, quarantined, damaged, expired or otherwise unsuitable positions cannot support a new commitment. Required lots and minimum shelf life further restrict the stock that can serve an order.

An accepted soft reservation immediately consumes availability for later requests. InventoryReservations retains that claim as it moves through fulfillment. Order-line totals reflect the ledger rather than acting as an independent second reservation system.

Release with the right authority

Warehouse Manager reviews Waves Pending Release, including order holds, cutoff, eligible stock and outstanding replenishments. Shift Supervisor can release only under a live, scoped delegation; the release retains the actual actor and authority used. Expired or out-of-scope delegation cannot authorize the decision.

Release converts soft claims to specific hard allocations rather than adding new claims on top. Accepting an unfinished replenishment does not waive stock eligibility or allow negative availability. Work that cannot yet be supplied remains pending or is replanned.

Pick paths sequence work by aisle traversal, zone and equipment suitability. A path may span orders, but the destination tote or compartment ownership must stay order-specific. A shared walking route is not permission to mix indistinguishable customer stock.

Recover from a short pick

A short pick records the quantity actually found and raises an exception for the remainder. The workflow releases the unusable part of the original claim before reserving an eligible alternative and creating replacement work. It cannot leave both the old and replacement claims consuming the same demand.

The operator cannot lower the customer’s requested quantity to make the task appear complete. If no eligible alternative exists, the unresolved balance follows the order’s short or hold handling. A suspect source location can be counted under a location lock; finding stock in another bin leads to a controlled move rather than an unexplained write-off.