The person responsible for the smooth operation of warehouse operations across the organization, knows that managing inventory, machines, people, and resources efficiently while meeting tight delivery deadlines means that you need to have resilience in your supply chain. To help companies like yours execute mission-critical manufacturing and distribution processes without interruptions, we have customized add-ins for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain management.

One effective tactic is to place scale units near the location where production work is done—whether that’s in the cloud or right inside the four walls of the warehouse facility. That way, you can take advantage of the dedicated capacity that scale units provide.

How to implement dedicated scale units.

With the workload for warehouse execution, you can transition the execution phase of warehouse processes into dedicated scale units. The workload defines the scope of business processes, data, and policies including rules, validation, and ownership for what runs in the scale unit. Inbound, outbound, and other warehouse management processes have been split into decoupled phases for planning, execution, receiving, and shipping.

After you configure the workload, the workers on the warehouse floor continue to go through the work, like choosing the mobile warehouse management experience, connected directly to the dedicated processing capacity in the scale unit.

Hybrid multi-node topology

In the hybrid multi-node topology, individual nodes are responsible for pieces in the distribution processes. The hub supports data management, warehouse process management, and release of orders to the warehouse and as well as some finalization steps, depending on the scenario.

For inbound warehouse processes, the responsibility of the workload on the scale unit begins when the purchasing agent releases purchase orders to the warehouse. It uses records of the new type of warehouse orders to trigger the work for the warehouse clerks on the floor.

A copy of the relevant inventory is available on the scale unit and is constantly kept in sync with the central inventory. For temporarily disconnected edge scale units, this local inventory acts as a local cache, so the  warehouse worker can complete work like put-away, independently of the scale unit.

As soon as warehouse workers have completed a task, the cloud hub runs the next steps. In the public preview, this includes the generation of the receipts for the receiving process. The transition happens instantaneously if the (edge) scale unit has connectivity.

Sales clerks find support in outbound warehouse processes when releasing sales orders to the warehouse. The workload in the scale unit will apply the relevant wave processing method and warehouse workers will perform tasks like picking. From there, the shipping process will take over. Tasks like the packing slip generation will still continue on the cloud hub in the preview version.

The workload for warehouse execution supports additional operations that run fully on the scale unit. Warehouse workers can inquire about items, item locations, and license plates, as well as move items within the warehouse.

Credits to Christian Abeln.

For more information visit https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/dynamics365