Polski (PL) 
English (United Kingdom) TL;DR: The Core Strategy
One and Two Step Picking in IFS Cloud is a warehouse efficiency mechanism designed to optimize how Handling Units (HU) are retrieved based on order volume and location accessibility.
- One Step Picking: Used for full pallet moves. The system directs a forklift driver to pick a complete Handling Unit directly to the shipment location. It eliminates unnecessary breakdown of pallets.
- Two Step Picking: Used for partial picks or high-reach locations. The system generates a Transport Task to move the pallet to a lower "Pick Face" or staging area first (Step 1), followed by the actual picking of the specific quantity (Step 2).
- The Benefit: drastically reduces travel time and ensures that bulk storage zones remain organized while keeping picking areas fluid.
What Problem Does This Solve?
In modern warehousing, particularly within complex supply chains utilizing IFS Cloud, a "one size fits all" picking strategy is a recipe for inefficiency. Warehouse Managers often struggle with a common dilemma: How do we handle orders that require 50 pieces of an item when a full pallet holds 100, versus orders that require the full 100?
Without a differentiated strategy, pickers might find themselves breaking down a full pallet in a high-bay location to pick 50 pieces—a slow, dangerous, and error-prone process. Conversely, they might pick 100 loose pieces one by one when they could have simply moved the whole pallet.
The One and Two Step Picking functionality solves this by introducing intelligence into the reservation logic. It allows the system to distinguish between "Retail/Piece" picking and "Wholesale/Bulk" picking, automating the decision-making process of whether to move a pallet or pick from it directly. This ensures resources are utilized correctly—forklifts for pallets, and pickers for pieces.
The Core Concept: Handling Unit Driven Logic
At the heart of this strategy lies the Handling Unit (HU). In IFS Cloud, an HU represents a physical container—a pallet, a box, or a cage—that holds inventory. The efficiency of your picking process is directly correlated to how well you manage these units.
The One and Two Step concept is particularly useful when your warehouse layout includes bulk zones (often high-bay storage) and picking zones (floor-level or flow racks). Operating on complete top-level handling units in bulk zones is far more efficient than picking single units from them. The system categorizes these operations into three distinct scenarios:
Scenario A: The Perfect Match
Condition: The customer demand (Order) exactly matches or exceeds the quantity of a full top-level Handling Unit.
Strategy: Pick in One Step. The system reserves the full HU and directs the picker to move the entire unit to the shipping dock.
Scenario B: The Partial Pick
Condition: The reservation is for a quantity less than a full Handling Unit (e.g., ordering 40 items from a pallet of 100).
Strategy: Pick in Two Steps. The system first creates a task to move the pallet to a picking area, and then a second task to pick the 40 items.
Scenario C: The Shared Pallet
Condition: A single Handling Unit is reserved by multiple different demands (e.g., Order A needs 50, Order B needs 50).
Strategy: Pick in Two Steps. The pallet is moved to a consolidation area where it is broken down for the respective orders.
Deep Dive: One Step Picking
One Step Picking is the epitome of lean warehousing. It is designed to minimize touches. If you have a pallet of goods and a customer wants a pallet of goods, you shouldn't touch the goods inside—you simply move the pallet.
How to Configure It
To enable this, the reservation logic in IFS must be prioritized to look for full top-level handling units first. This involves configuring the Automatic Reservation priorities on the Site or Part level. By prioritizing "Largest Quantity on Handling Unit" and "Outermost Handling Unit," the system will naturally attempt to lock onto full pallets.
Execution Flow
Once the reservation is locked onto a full HU, the execution is straightforward. You navigate to the Create Consolidated Pick List for Customer Orders or Create Consolidated Pick List for Shipment job.
Pro Tip: When running the pick list creation job, select the filter option "Only Handling Units to be Picked in One Step". This is crucial. It filters out any partial demands and generates pick lists specifically for your forklift drivers who move full pallets.
The result is a streamlined pick list that directs the operator to Location X, to pick Handling Unit Y, and deposit it directly at the Dock or Staging Lane. No counting, no unpacking.
Deep Dive: Two Step Picking
Two Step Picking acts as a bridge between your bulk storage and your detailed picking operations. It facilitates the picking of reservations that constitute only a part of a handling unit, or when a unit is "contested" by multiple orders.
Step 1: The Move (Replenishment logic)
The first step is purely logistical: moving the inventory from a "hard to pick" location to an "easy to pick" location. This could be moving a pallet from level 5 of a rack down to a floor location, or moving it from a bulk warehouse to a forward picking zone.
This is achieved by running specific batch programs:
- Move Customer Order Reservations with Transport Task
- Move Shipment Reservations with Transport Task
These jobs are powerful. They allow the warehouse manager to define criteria: "Move all partial reservations from Bulk Zone A to Picking Zone B." When executed, the system generates Transport Tasks. These tasks instruct the forklift drivers to bring the stock down.
Step 2: The Pick
Once the Transport Task is executed (or even while it is active, if configuration allows), the inventory is now virtually or physically in a pickable location. You then run the standard Create Consolidated Pick List job. This generates the actual picking document for the picker to take the specific quantity needed for the order.
Strategic Configuration: Bulk Zones vs. Picking Areas
Implementing One and Two Step picking requires a deliberate warehouse layout strategy within IFS Cloud. The system needs to know which locations are "Bulk" and which are "Picking."
1. Defining Storage Zones
Navigate to the Storage Zone window. Create at least two zones:
- BULK: High capacity, high racking, intended for full pallet storage.
- PICK: Floor level, flow racking, or shelving intended for breaking bulk.
2. Automatic Reservation Priorities
This is where the magic happens. On the Site / Inventory / Automatic Reservation tab, you must align the priorities to favor the logic of stripping the bulk area of full pallets first, and using the pick area for loose units.
Recommended Setup:
- Priority 1: Highest Putaway Zone Ranking (This forces the system to look at zone preference first).
- Priority 2: Largest Quantity on Handling Unit (This ensures we grab the biggest available unit first—a full pallet).
- Priority 3: Outermost Handling Unit (Ensures we take the parent pallet, not a box inside the pallet).
3. Putaway Zone Basic Data & Ranking
The final piece of the puzzle connects the Zones to the Priorities. In Putaway Zone Basic Data, you define the ranking logic.
- For the BULK Zone: Set the ranking to prioritize Full Handling Units. Give it a high rank (low number) for full pallets.
- For the PICK Zone: Set the ranking to prioritize Less than Full Handling Units. Give it a high rank for loose picks.
The Result: When an order comes in for 100 units (a full pallet), the logic sees that BULK has a higher rank for full pallets and directs the reservation there (One Step). When an order comes in for 10 units, the logic sees that PICK has a higher rank for partials and directs the reservation there. If no stock exists in PICK, the Two Step logic kicks in to move stock from BULK to PICK.
Benefits for the Enterprise
Why invest the time to configure this?
- Labor Efficiency: Forklift drivers stay on forklifts; pickers stay on the floor. Specialized labor is used for its intended purpose.
- Safety: Reduces the need to pick loose items from high levels, minimizing the risk of falling objects or injury.
- Inventory Accuracy: By managing full HUs, you reduce the instances of miscounting loose items in deep reserve locations.
- Scalability: As order volume grows, this logic scales automatically without needing manual intervention from warehouse supervisors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, provided you have configured the Site settings to allow "Reserve from Transport Task." This allows the system to generate the picking list based on the assumption that the goods will be at the pick face by the time the picker arrives, enabling a Just-In-Time (JIT) internal flow.
If a HU is blocked (e.g., for quality control or counting), the Automatic Reservation logic will skip it and look for the next available HU based on your priority settings. If no other HU is available, the reservation will fail or look for loose inventory, depending on your fallback configurations.
Absolutely. Both Transport Tasks (Step 1) and Picking Lists (Step 2) are fully supported in the IFS Scan It mobile app. Drivers can receive transport tasks directly on their handheld devices, scan the pallet ID to move it, and confirm the location drop-off in real-time.
One and Two Step picking works seamlessly with Wave Picking. You can aggregate multiple orders into a Wave, and the system will apply the same reservation logic to the aggregated demand. This is often used to trigger a "Replenishment Wave" (Step 1 moves) followed by a "Picking Wave."
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