Wave picking is used to support management and workers via a warehouse management system (WMS) in several ways, to support the planning and organizing of the daily flow of work of a warehouse or distribution center.
Managers, using a WMS, may assign groups of orders into short intervals called "waves", to initially simulate the flow for the day, consistent with the order departure plan and available labor.
[2] The wave planning data includes the workload (order lines, cases, each items, value added services, etc.)
), providing management the information to calculate staff requirements (Reasonable Expectancies or Productivity Standards) to guide the assignment of staff by function, with the reasonable expectation that the work in each function, within each wave.
[citation needed] Material handling methods and equipment are independent of waving.