Wave Picks in SAP Logistics Execution

The blog is on Wave pick in SAP, Most of the WMS systems in the ERP market are designed the picking process more of custom method. The very common factor among all systems is a Ref.NUMBER for picking. whether you call it as a pick plan number or wave pick number or batch pick number or group number, It consolidates the picks with subsequent functions like creating picks & printing ,confirming, PGI and billing. In SAP, using a Wave Picks you can plan picks according to time criteria and also integrate to other subsequent functions. We have very good material at help.sap.com, but this blog post will explain you the concept and functionality in a simple way with important configuration steps for SAP Wave picks.

In a simple terminology, Wave Picks are groups of deliveries that are identified by a number. You also have group number in SAP, which do some common functions like wave pick. The advantage of wave pick/number is to select the deliveries according to the time slots with capacity limitation and subsequent functions till billing. You can track processing of wave picks with the wave pick monitor at Tcode VL37.

Example: If a Warehouse has 1500 outbound deliveries per shift, wave pick can group these with time slot. First shift starts at 6am and end at 2pm, a wave pick can run for time slot say each hour and the deliveries can process in that manner.

OK. Now we need to know A) How to create a Wave Pick and B) How to Process & track Wave picks with subsequent functions.

A) How to create a Wave Pick :

1) According to Time slot: TCode VL35 and VL35_ST

2) According to Shipment: TCode VL35_S

3) Delivery monitor selections: TCode VL06P

4) Manual creation through TCode VG01 select “W” for wave pick as a group type.

In general WM teams create Waves with Delivery monitor, because it gives them lot of selection options to narrow their deliveries to process with one wave number. But some Teams create Waves based on based on Timeslot configurations, this will help them to plan and execute their regular schedules with capacity restrictions on pickings.

You can see below configurations steps required in order to use the time slots in wave creation process.

Time Slot: A time slot can be a one hour time period in a warehouse shift or a whole shift. This can be configured at IMG>Logistics Execution> Shipping>Picking>Wave Picks>Maintain Time Slots.

Picking wave profile: Capacity limits can be configured for each time slot. you can limit the number items to be picked, number of picking activities, weight, volume and number of picking hours. This can be configured at IMG>Logistics Execution> Shipping>Picking>Wave Picks>Maintain Wave Picks Profile.

Time Slot Group: This is further level of time slot. example a time-slot group can contain all the time slots for a particular shift or particular working day. This can be configured at IMG>Logistics Execution> Shipping>Picking>Wave Picks>Maintain Time-slot Group for Wave Pick.

Comparison time for Pick wave creation:You can give Picktime or loading time or Goods isuue time for time of comparison for each warehouse. IMG>Logistics Execution> Shipping>Picking>Wave Picks>Maintain Time of comparison for forming wave picks

B) How to Process & track Wave picks with subsequent functions

Here we will start from Wave monitor with VL37.

SAP designed this monitor in such a way that you are not only do the subsequent processes like  replenish, pick, print, confirm, PGI/Shipment and Billing but also track and analyze each and every stage of Wave. I personally like this Monitor. Those who don’t have the legacy WMS systems can easily adopt this Wave pick process. As i can not keep the screen shots here.

Once you are in the monitor with wave number, you can select wave and go to the “Subseq. Processing” click each function and it will take you to the next process and come back and refresh the monitor. You can always track and analyze the wave picks. In order to change a group/wave use  TCode VG02 and to Delete an existing group use TCode VASK.

This is a great tool that most will like to implement in SAP, but ultimately it’s a business process and the owner will decide the right tool for their pick process.

wave pick process from help.sap.com and more on Shipping process with wave picks in more detail.