Understanding Power Pick

Power Pick — formally Kardex Power Pick Systems — software by Kardex Remstar, works as a warehouse management system (WMS) solution, built to optimize and streamline warehouse processes. Workers will interact with Kardex storage units through Power Pick to fulfill requests to retrieve items from the system. ItemPath works as an application programming interface (API), middleware, and analytics engine between Power Pick and your enterprise resource planning system.

This segment will discuss some of the Power Pick requirements before you can set up an integration using ItemPath, and familiarize you with some basic Power Pick terminology.

Connection requirements

When setting up ItemPath for managing integrations, the following information is required from Power Pick:

Username & password and database name
Dedicated IP address and port number (default 1433)
If you are using ItemPath Cloud: The dedicated IP address should be a public IP accessible outside of internal networks.
The Power Pick SQL Server will need to be able to accept remote connections via IP (see SQL server documentation)

The Power Pick CEU (Cross Enterprise Unit) Web Services Interface module is also required for using our integration services. You should note the following details for setting up the module for communication with ItemPath:

Username & password of a Power Pick user, ideally with Admin-level command rights
Dedicated IP and port number (default 1353) for the machine running the Power Pick Cross Enterprise Unit Service (typically also running the rule engine)
ItemPath Cloud: The dedicated IP address should be a public IP accessible outside of internal networks
Web Client station in Power Pick (see documentation)

Some basics

When building an integration, there are a couple of things that might seem unusual about how Power Pick processes orders, transactions, and confirmations. Let's start by defining some key terminology:

Order: A request to complete a task within Power Pick. These can be to pick, put, or otherwise move materials, or count the materials at a location.
Order Line: Orders can be composed of multiple tasks — these are individual lines that usually contain a material and quantity.
Transaction: The record of various steps that are completed throughout the process of order fulfillment.
Material: The goods that are stored inside a Kardex storage unit.

So, an order can include an order line to pick a material from a bin. When the picker in the warehouse completes the order, they conduct a transaction (interacting with Power Pick and/or the storage unit) to fulfill the requirements of an order line.

One order line, multiple transactions

It's important to note that one order line can have multiple transactions. A pick might require picking from multiple bins, or there could be a motive such as a shortage of a material.

Let's go through an example:

An initial order comes, with an order line to pick 12 hex nuts (quantity and material) from a bin in a VLM. It may have additional order lines to pick or put more parts. Each order line is a task to be completed as part of the order.
A worker processes an order and begins to pick from the bin on the tray of the VLM, but finds that they are able to only pick a limited number of the parts.
Transaction #1: They confirm picking all parts available. The confirmed quantity is sent and the order line status is updated to "in process." Power Pick knows to continue work with this order line.
Transaction #2: The remainder of the parts are picked from another bin. The confirmed quantity is sent and the order line status is "complete." (There will be no deviated quantity in the final result, because the entire requested quantity was fulfilled.)

With Data Push, transactions can be consolidated so only one confirmation is sent per order or per order line, combining data from multiple records. If the setting to "Consolidate Lines" is active, all transactions for an order line will be combined into one payload. Since data from the History table is unique to each transaction, the values for each transaction ID will be passed in one array.

Stored materials only

When creating a Power Pick order, a “pick” order takes materials out of a storage unit, and a “put” order puts materials in. If the order line includes a material Power Pick doesn’t recognize, an error will be returned. That means orders can’t include parts not in Power Pick. Filtering for only materials in a bin called “KARDEX” works for most integrations. Additionally, Data Pull can be used to make new material records so that put orders can be created to place new materials into your storage units.

Because Power Pick storage units are designed to determine optimal locations based on material storage rules, zones, and other logic, ERPs usually treat it like a “black box” and don’t need to set or record specific locations beyond warehouse and storage unit or station.

Two inventories

Between inventory records in your ERP software and Power Pick, Power Pick’s will be more reliable because of user confirmation. Use the API to get material quantities or ItemPath’s Variance app to check for discrepancies on a regular basis.

Plus, ItemPath can report on deviated quantities and send a notification when shortages occur. With ItemPath’s Order Builder app, ItemPath can even automatically generate a “count” order to count the location or material that was marked empty or missing. Inventory accuracy goes way up with these tools!

Other requirements

Before building integrations with ItemPath, you will need to have both ItemPath and Power Pick configured. The main feature that is required for your Power Pick system to work with our integration services (for creating orders) is the Power Pick CEU Web Services Interface module.

Other modules are available that ItemPath can work with, including:

Database Configurator: Enables Dynamic Fields in Power Pick.
Jobs: Requires the ItemPath "Jobs" app for compatibility.