Warehouse Management

I specifically want to cover issues around case inventory in this post. By "Case Inventory", I mean an unopened container containing standard quantity of a single item packed by the vendor or manufacturer. In the past few days I have received a lot of questions about how to perform case picking efficiently. Its quiet Obvious to me that this is an area of big concern for at least some of you. Hopefully you'll find this post to be of some value.

The recent mails that I received can be summarized as follows:

• We scan every LPN at load and then scan them again at drop. This is way too in-efficient. How can we avoid scanning every LPN at drop?

• We need a UCC-128 label for every carton that we ship to a customer.

• Our customer requires us to have a pallet level ASN. How can I achieve it?

I think the core problem here is how to store a case in your warehouse and how should it be modeled in WMS. As always there are many ways to skin a cat. There are two in this case (no pun intended!):

#1 Cases Stored as LPNs

This option assumes that cases are stored in the warehouse bin with a unique license plate (LPN) assigned to each Case.

#2 Cases Stored without LPNs

In this scenario, cases are stored in the warehouse bin without a unique License Plate number assigned to it. Thus each case of material is not marked individually with a number such as license plate number or a serial number.

In the part-1 of this post, lets evaluate under what circumstances, Cases should be stored as  LPNs. To evaluate this option, its best to consider the impact of this decision on all the warehouse processes.

When you should store Cases as LPNs?

This option makes sense if you mostly ship full cases from the warehouse and customers require you to have case level markings. If case activity is fairly high, this option will involve high degree of scans to handle cases. Let us also look at the impact of this decision on other functional areas:

Manufacturing: If you wish to store cases as LPNs, you better ensure an efficient way to  have LPNs assigned to cases. If cases come out of manufacturing line, that is the best place to assign LPNs to cases. WMS allows you to create LPN prepacks based on a standard container item relationship. Confirmation of case completion in Manufacturing can be greatly streamlined by scanning these case LPNs.

Receiving : If you receive cases and lots of it, this is not a very good option. Lets face it, receiving, packing and labeling individual cases into LPNs in your receiving area is not the most efficient way of managing the receiving area. Especially so, if the case activity is fairly high.  If it all you wish to opt for it, pass the onus of LPN labeling each individual case to your vendor or manufacturer. Trust me your receiving area workers will thank you for it! Bascially you need to ensure the following:

• Vendor to send pre-labeled cases with LPN marking: To ensure correct scanning of LPN, have a standard label format as well as a standard method to generate unique LPN (e.g. SSCC-18)
  

• Vendor to send LPN information in ASN: ASN import from the vendor should have the LPN information to facilitate express receiving.
  

• Express receiving of floor loaded cases: The express receive option can greatly speed up the receiving process. All that is needed is to scan each individual case coming off the trailer. If you wish to automate using a fixed mount bar code scanner, that is also possible.
  

If the vendor is incapable of labeling or sending the ASN, there is one more option. This involves bulk pack of received items into LPNs based on a standard container-item relationship. If you choose to go this route, you need to first receive the goods as loose items in inventory and then perform a  bulk pack. Bulk pack will create an LPN out of every case and also trigger an LPN label for it.

Putaway: Once the cases with LPN labels are received, what is the best way to perform putaway. Once again there are two options:

• Case Putaway using Pallet: Its possible to load one or more case LPNs for putaway into a single pallet LPN. This can be done using "Manual Load" transaction. If all the cases can fit into a single locator, the entire putaway confirmation can be done using a single transaction instead of confirming cases individually. You also do not want a nested LPN structure at the storage area. Therefore use "Transfer Content" to the destination rather than a "Drop LPN". This way the pallet LPN can be reused multiple times for putaway.

• Case Putaway using Belt: This involves loading a case LPN on conveyor belt and performing putaway drop at the destination. The load and drop maybe done by different operators. However the putaway confirmation will require an individual confirmation of each case LPN and this could be a potential productivity killer. 

Picks: Picking case LPNs could have its own set of challenges. For maximum productivity its best to minimize scans of LPNs. Similar to putaway, there  are two options:

• Case Pick using Pallet: Its possible to load one or more case LPNs into a single pallet LPN. This can be done by creating a new transaction with a "Case Pick" flavor. To do that the pick load page should be configured such that confirmation of "Into LPN" is enabled for full LPN picks.
  

• Case Pick using Belt: This involves loading a case LPN on conveyor belt and performing pick drop at the staging lane or consolidation area. The load and drop maybe done by different operators.
  

         

This option can be enabled by configuring the pick load page to recognize full LPN picks, enabling Transfer LPN field with no confirmation. This way the entire case LPN can be picked very efficiently.  However the pick drop option will require an individual confirmation of each case LPN. The option of deploying fixed  mount barcode reader to automatically trigger pick drops for each case coming off the belt can also be explored.

Labeling: Customers often have varying requirements for labels. As discussed in an earlier post, the label information on cases and pallets must match the outbound ASN. Therefore if a customer wants a pallet level ASN, each pallet in the delivery must have a UCC-128 label and a SSCC-18 compliant LPN associated with it. If cases have LPNs assigned to them, a pallet "Merge-Up" transaction can destroy the case LPNs and consolidate the content at pallet level. Similarly if the customer requirement is for a case level ASN, each case in the delivery must have a UCC-128 label and a SSCC-18 compliant LPN associated with it. If the outer pallet has an LPNs assigned to it, a pallet "Break-Down" transaction can de-nest the case LPNs from the pallet LPN.

In the part-2 of this post, the other option of modeling cases will be explored. Stay tuned until then