Table of Contents

Activity Manager

The Activity Manager rates the open warehouse activities so that the scanning application can offer a warehouse operator the most suitable next task. Every activity gets a rating from a set of scoring rules; the activity with the lowest rating is offered first. With the Activity Manager you decide, per situation, what counts most: the activity date, the distance from the operator's current location, the priority of the activity or, for example for replenishment, the zone in which the activity starts.

Overview

The Activity Manager is used by the scan function 16. Update Rating of 3PL Scan Function Whse. Act.. A scan view that offers "the next task" calls this function; it rates the open warehouse activities and either returns the top-rated activity (method 1), returns the rated list as a temporary table (method 2) or writes the rating to the warehouse activities (method blank).

Three pieces of setup work together:

  • Activity Manager - a code with one or more Activity Manager Lines. Each line defines for which activities it applies (filters) and how their rating is calculated (scoring).
  • Activity Manager Schedule - defines which Activity Manager applies at which date, weekday and time. It is used when the scan function does not name an Activity Manager itself.
  • Activity Manager Code on the Scan Employee - gives an operator their own Activity Manager, for example to give the operator's primary zone priority over a failover zone.

In addition, the equipment the operator is working with can limit which activities are offered: activities whose from or to location lies higher than the Max. Reach Height of the active Equipment Type are skipped. See Equipment reach height.

Note

The Activity Manager determines the order in which activities are offered (scoring). Which activities an operator may see at all is a filter, for example an Order Control Role on the scan employee or the equipment. Use both together: an Activity Manager with zone lines to order the work, and an Order Control Role to restrict the operator to the zones they work in.

Set up an activity manager

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Activity Manager List, and then choose the related link.
  2. Choose New and fill in the Code and Description.
  3. On the Activity Manager Lines part, create one line per group of activities that must be rated in the same way. For each line, first set the filters that determine which activities the line applies to, then the scoring fields.

Which activities a line applies to

All filter fields are optional. A blank field means that the line applies to all values of that field. For each warehouse activity the first line (in line order) whose filters all match is used to calculate the rating, so put specific lines (for example per zone) above generic lines.

Field Description
Activity Type Code The line only applies to warehouse activities with this activity type.
Action Code The line only applies to warehouse activities with this action code.
Activity Group Code The line only applies to warehouse activities within this activity group.
From Zone Code The line only applies to warehouse activities that start in this zone. Leave blank to apply to all zones. Use this to give one zone priority over another, see the example below.
Document Type The line only applies to warehouse activities of this source document type (Receipt, Shipment, Transfer, ...).
Min. Time Since Act. Date (min.) The line only applies to activities for which at least this number of minutes has elapsed since the activity date/time. Use negative values for time left until the activity date/time.
Max. Time Since Act. Date (min.) The line only applies to activities for which less than this number of minutes has elapsed since the activity date/time. Use negative values for time left until the activity date/time.
Blocked A blocked line is ignored.
Important

A warehouse activity that matches no line of the Activity Manager gets rating 0, which is the best possible rating: it is offered before every rated activity. Make sure that every activity the operator may see matches a line, or exclude the other activities with a filter (for example an Order Control Role), or add a catch-all line without filters and with a very high Base Score at the bottom.

The action Warehouse Activities on a line shows the warehouse activities that match the filters of that line.

How the rating is calculated

The rating of an activity starts with the Base Score of the matching line. Time, distance and priority then add to or subtract from it. The activity with the lowest rating wins.

Field Description
Base Score The base score that is used as a starting point for the warehouse activity rating. Use it to rank whole groups of activities, for example zones: a line with Base Score 0 always ranks before a line with Base Score 100000 as long as the other components stay below that difference.
Expiration Factor (min.) The factor per minute that is applied when execution is on time, that is, the activity date/time is still in the future and the rush period has not yet begun.
Overdue Factor (min.) The factor per minute that is applied when execution is too late, that is, the activity date/time has already elapsed.
Rush Period (min.) The duration in minutes of the rush period before the activity date/time. In this period the activity date is very close and the rating needs to increase faster.
Rush Factor (min.) The factor per minute that is applied during the rush period.
Time Factor The ratio for time versus distance. A higher value means time is more important than distance. The time components above are multiplied by this factor; 0 switches the time component off.
Distance Factor The ratio for distance versus time. A higher value means distance is more important than time. The distance is the path cost over the warehouse map (x/y coordinates) from the location given to the scan function (parameter LOCATION NO.) to the from location of the activity. 0 switches the distance component off.
Priority Factor The weight of the activity priority. A higher value makes high-priority activities (such as replenishment) get picked up sooner. The Priority of the activity is used, falling back to the priority of its activity group. 0 (default) ignores priority.
Tip

To check how the rating of the current activities is built up, use Debug > Calc. Whse. Activity Rating on the Activity Manager card. It rates the open activities with this Activity Manager without changing them and opens the result as a temporary list sorted by rating. The formula per activity is written to the Instruction field of that list; add the column through personalization if it is not shown. When a warehouse map exists, you first select the location to calculate the distance from.

Activity manager schedule

When the scan function does not specify an Activity Manager (see Activity manager per operator), the Activity Manager Schedule determines which Activity Manager is used at the moment the function runs.

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Activity Manager Schedule, and then choose the related link.
  2. Create a line per period with the Activity Manager Code and, optionally, From Date / To Date, From Weekday / To Weekday and From Time / To Time. A blank range applies always.
  3. The first line (in line order) that is not Blocked and whose date, weekday and time ranges include the current moment is used. Use View > Sort by Priority to reorder the lines so that the most specific lines (with the most restrictions) come first and the lines without restrictions last.

Activity manager per operator

Instead of one Activity Manager for everybody (the schedule), each operator can have their own. This is useful when different operators work in different zones or with different priorities.

  1. On the Scan Employee card, fill in the Activity Manager Code. This is the activity manager used to rate warehouse activities for this scan employee, for example to give the employee's primary zone priority over a failover zone.
  2. In the scan view, call the scan function 72. Get Activity Manager Code of 3PL Scan Function Whse. Act. before the next-task function. Leave parameter USERID empty to read the code of the logged-in scan employee, and store the return value ACTMGRCODE in a session variable, for example *ACTMGRCODE*. If the field on the scan employee is blank, the return value is blank as well.
  3. Set parameter 2 ACTIVITY MGR. of scan function 16. Update Rating to Type = Session Variable and No. = ACTMGRCODE. The function then uses the operator's Activity Manager. When the session variable is blank (employee without an Activity Manager Code), the function falls back to the Activity Manager Schedule.
Note

Nothing is filled automatically at login. Scan views that do not call 72. Get Activity Manager Code keep using the Activity Manager Schedule, so customers who do not need an Activity Manager per operator are not affected.

Equipment reach height

Not every piece of equipment can reach every location. A reach truck can serve the high levels of a rack, a pallet jack cannot. To prevent that an operator is offered a task they cannot perform with their equipment:

  1. On the Location Card, fill in Height from Floor: the vertical distance from the floor to the bottom of the location, in the same unit as Height. This is not the clearance of the location itself (see Height). The field is also available in the master data import template for locations, see Locations.
  2. On the Equipment Type List, fill in Max. Reach Height: the maximum height from the floor that equipment of this type can reach, in the same unit as the location Height from Floor. 0 means no restriction. See Equipment Type.
  3. Make sure the operator's equipment is active in the scan session: either as Default Equipment No. on the scan employee or with the scan function Set Active Equipment No. (see Warehouse Equipment).

When scan function 16. Update Rating runs with method 1 (return top rated entry no.) or method 2 (return temptable), it reads the Max. Reach Height of the type of the active equipment. Warehouse activities whose from or to location has a Height from Floor above that value are skipped, and the next reachable activity is offered. The check is active as soon as the active equipment type has a Max. Reach Height greater than 0; no extra function parameter is needed.

  • A location without Height from Floor (0) and an activity without a from or to location are always considered reachable.
  • When no active equipment is set, the equipment has no type or the type has Max. Reach Height 0, nothing is skipped.
  • Method blank (write rating to database) rates all activities and does not apply the reach check.
  • With method 1, when no reachable activity remains the function behaves as when no activity is found: the text in parameter ERRORNOTFOUND is shown, if filled. With method 2 the out-of-reach activities are simply left out of the returned list.

Example: zone priority for replenishment

A reach truck operator must first do the replenishment tasks of their primary zone A; only when zone A has no open tasks may they continue in failover zone B. Tasks in other zones must not be offered to them at all, and a voice user must never get a REPICK task.

  1. Create an Activity Manager, for example REPL-A, with two lines:

    Line From Zone Code Activity Group Code Base Score
    1 A (replenishment group) 0
    2 B (replenishment group) 100000

    Because the lowest rating wins, every zone A task ranks before every zone B task. Keep the time, distance and priority factors small enough that their contribution can never exceed the difference between the two base scores.

  2. Create an Order Control Role on the table WMS Whse. Activity with the table filter From Zone Code = A|B, and link it to the scan employee. This keeps tasks in other zones out of sight. Without this role, a task in zone C would match no line, get rating 0 and be offered first.

  3. For voice users, create an Order Control Role on WMS Whse. Activity with the table filter Activity Group Code = <>REPICK and link it to those scan employees.

  4. On the scan employee of the reach truck operator, set Activity Manager Code = REPL-A and the Default Equipment No. of the reach truck, whose equipment type has a Max. Reach Height.

  5. In the scan view that offers the next task, first call scan function 72. Get Activity Manager Code (return value ACTMGRCODE into session variable *ACTMGRCODE*), then configure scan function 16. Update Rating with method 1, parameter 2 ACTIVITY MGR. = Session Variable ACTMGRCODE and parameter 14 USEORDERCONTRROLE = 1, so that both the operator's Activity Manager and the Order Control Roles are applied.

The operator is then offered the zone A tasks first, then the zone B tasks, and never a task that their equipment cannot reach.

Warehouse Activity Scan Employee Equipment Type Warehouse Equipment Locations Zones and Picking 3PL Scan Function Whse. Act.

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