Priority rules that survive a busy hour
At 14:05 eight open forklift material call-offs hit the line-feed group at once. Everything looked urgent. Nothing was ranked. Drivers tapped whatever was nearest on the screen and the real starve waited.
What priority has to do when the group is flooded
AOS (commonly known as FGS) broadcasts each work order to a driver group. Keep forklift pallet jobs, supermarket prep, and tugger milk-run delivery in separate groups so priority fights stay inside one ordering shape. In a quiet hour, first-accept and oldest-first coaching may be enough. In a busy hour the list is long, attention is short, and without priority the loudest station or the most convenient hop wins. Priority is a ranking signal on that shared list, not a second radio channel and not nearest-truck assignment. The vehicle split is under milk-run orders vs direct forklift orders.
Useful plants keep few levels. Example: line stop, soon-to-stop, normal replenishment, empties. Maintenance and warehouse teams already warn about priority inflation: when most jobs are marked urgent, badges become wallpaper and people pick by convenience. If five levels all fire as top priority, drivers ignore the color. Priority must be rare enough to mean something when the hall is loud.
How to keep priority honest
Tie top priority to measurable stops or countdowns from MES or to a clearly labeled emergency button, not to every supervisor preference. Age can raise a normal job after a threshold so a forgotten call does not sit forever under new VIP noise. Empties stay below true starves. How oldest versus local preference interacts with that ranking is under oldest open job vs local preference inside a group.
Configuration lives with request templates under request triggers in the workflow editor. After the rush, the stored record in the spatially oriented dataset shows which high-priority jobs still waited and which normal jobs jumped the queue. That is the weekly priority audit.
Milk-run noise is not a line stop
A late milk-run trolley drop on a line that is already slower than theoretical consumption is usually inventory early, not a starve. Do not promote every tour miss to top priority inside the tugger group. Save the top badge for confirmed or imminent line stops. Use normal or soon-to-stop for planned supermarket replenishment that slipped. Direct forklift AOS pulls should outrank quiet tour leftovers only when the station actually needs a pallet-size move. That separation keeps fleet capacity free for real risk instead of defending the tugger clock. The mix is under milk runs on theoretical consumption vs dynamic pull across lines.
A typical busy hour that taught the plant less VIP
Every station lead had a "priority" habit on the radio. On day one of AOS they mapped that habit into top priority for almost every template. The group saw a wall of red. Drivers stopped trusting the color. After logistics cut top priority to MES-proven line stops only, the badges meant something again. Normal material call-offs sorted by age. Empties stayed visible but lower. Claims during the 14:00 wave matched the real risk order more often.
How teams decide priority will survive the next rush
1. Cap top priority to a small share of daily jobs - If most calls are VIP, reset the model.
2. Prefer system proof for the highest tier - Countdown or confirmed stop beats opinion.
3. Let age escalate forgotten normals - Silence should not bury a call forever.
4. Audit one busy hour every week for two months - Compare badge order to actual accepts.
Priority and ordering sit under material order automation and internal logistics optimization, with depth on the features overview. Pricing is under pricing.
Get in touch if you want to walk whether your priority badges still mean something at 14:05, or already look like wallpaper.