IFS Cloud Warehouse Tasks: Priority and Planning

A warehouse task is a unit of warehouse work that a worker executes, created for a task type. The page lists six predefined warehouse task types:

• Customer Order Pick List
• Transport Task
• Shop Order Pick List
• Shipment Order Pick List
• Project Deliverables Pick List
• Purchase Receipt Return Pick List

The warehouse worker is connected to warehouse task types and location groups, so these are the two dimensions of what a worker can do. For a transport task the worker must be allowed to work on both the to and the from location groups and sites. The fact that tasks replace pick lists when warehousing is used is covered in warehouse data collection in IFS Cloud, and the location groups themselves in warehouse structure design.

A task has one of six statuses: Planned, Released, Started, Parked, Closed or Canceled. The Start In Status setting of the task type decides whether a task is created with an initial status of Planned or Released. A Planned task should never appear in the automatic selection of warehouse tasks for a worker, and a Released task is available to start. A task can be canceled if it has Planned, Released or Started status, and Parked means the task is temporarily on hold.

The task is ultimately assigned to a warehouse worker when it is set to Started status. Once it is Started or Closed, the task cannot be assigned to any other worker. A planner who wants to move work between workers has to do it before the task starts. It is also not possible to execute a warehouse task if stocks have been frozen for counting, which links task planning to cycle count variance reconciliation.

Priority on a warehouse task is a number valid from 1 to 99999, where the value 1 means the highest priority. The attribute is mandatory on the task type, and it is used as a default for priority on the warehouse tasks if priority is not sent from the task source.

A manager can overrule it. The manually set operative priority overrules the default priority, and only positive integers can be used to define operative priority, that is 1, 2, 3 and so on. If the same operative priority is set on more than one warehouse task, the default priority is still considered. The page does not describe the default priority as a tie-breaker, so test what order your configuration produces when two tasks share an operative priority.

The order in which a worker starts tasks depends on further factors. The priority that is set in Warehouse Task Type Setup also affects the order, and the finish date for the warehouse task decides in which order the tasks should be started. Together with the worker’s basic data, these are the inputs the page names.

The page gives three prerequisites regarding prioritisation. The task type must be Active in Warehouse Task Type Setup, which is a site setup and not a per-worker setting. The location group must be Active in Warehouse Worker/Location Group. And only warehouse tasks in the Released status can be selected.

The design consequence is that each prerequisite is a setting someone owns. A task type that is inactive for the site, a location group that is inactive for the worker, or a task left in Planned status leaves a prerequisite for prioritisation unmet, and a Planned task never appears in the automatic selection for a worker. Check these three settings first when the order of tasks is not what the planner expects. The packing and picking flows around these tasks are covered in advanced picking strategies in IFS Cloud and the packing proposal.

On the planning page the manager can prioritise the warehouse tasks by setting an operative priority in the Operative Priority column. If you select the Assigned option in the Assignment section, the Worker ID and Worker Group fields are enabled. To assign tasks to a worker group, select the tasks from the list items, open the list item context menu and select the Assign/Reassign Worker Group option; there is also an Assign/Reassign Worker option.

The same context menu changes status: select Plan, Release, Start, Complete, Park or Restart according to your requirement. The page therefore covers priority, assignment and status in one place. Decide who may use it and in which cases, because an operative priority set on one task changes the order of work for the worker who holds it.

To see the current workload and resource situation, the planning page points to the Workload per Location Group page or the Workload per Location Group Graph page. You select the Site, Task Type and Location Group that you want to see in the header.

The task types also carry time values. Each task type has a Default Time Needed, which represents the time needed to execute one line of the task type, and a Default Requested Lead Time, used as a default if no requested date finished is sent from the task source. The page gives an efficiency example: if the standard time is 2 minutes and the worker’s efficiency is 80 percent, the system calculates the expected time at 2.5 minutes. Follow-up calculations are not used automatically for new tasks but must be copied.

The 26R1 page on planning warehouse tasks adds that a planner can change the time that a worker spends on a specific task type and can change the requested date finished. It states that the system performs the correct prioritisation of the best possible task to start next for every worker, as long as the workload remains constant.

The warehouse manager owns four decisions: the default priority of each task type, which workers cover which task types and location groups, who may set an operative priority, and the time values used for workload. A default priority set by a project team and never reviewed is a decision nobody owns, and the floor works to it.

The related decision about when tasks are created as Planned and when as Released belongs with the same person, because it decides whether a task reaches a worker without a planner’s action. Receipt, which comes before put-away and picking, is covered in goods receipt, inspection and put-away in IFS Cloud.

Test the priority set-up with competing tasks and a worker who is set up for them, and write down the expected order before the test runs.

A task planning design is ready for go-live when each of the checks below has a record behind it.

1. The task types in use are listed, with a default priority for each.
2. Every worker is connected to the task types and location groups the worker covers.
3. The task types are Active for the site and the location groups Active for the workers.
4. The Start In Status of each task type is decided and written down.
5. The persons who may set an operative priority are named.
6. The Default Time Needed and Default Requested Lead Time of each task type are set and reviewed.
7. The five test cases are recorded with evidence.

Dariusz Myśliwiec: 18 years hands-on with IFS, including IFS Cloud. Based in Kraków, delivering remotely across Europe and globally through an independent practice. You talk to the consultant who does the work, not a sales layer.

IFS is a registered trademark of IFS AB; this practice is not affiliated with IFS AB.