7 July, 2011
Tablogix is a large third-party warehousing and logistics company with many years experience of worldwide storage and handling. The company has a huge Glasgow-based warehouse with painted floor “bays” but no distinct racking. The company wanted to block-stack received pallets while adhering to their ‘First-In, First-Out’ (FIFO) policy.
The absence of racking poses a number of specific problems. Put-away can stack an incoming block on top of another since a rental charge is applied to each space. However, when picking, FIFO may request pallets to be removed from the bottom or middle of the stack. SWS names this process ‘Gravity’ and many people use the term ‘Live storage’.
Following SWS consultancy, the procedure at Tablogix now works as follows:
- A pick list is produced and the warehouse operator removes the pallet from the stack.
- They return to the office to confirm the pick.
- On receiving confirmation, SWS reconfigures its data to reflect the change in position of the remaining pallets in the stack. A record is written to the charging routine for invoicing.
Note: some sites have fixed locations, i.e. one-location, one-product code. It is not common practice and does not improve warehouse management software efficiency because SWS looks for empty locations close to existing similar products.
Fixed locations are good for certain types of article. SWS normally make your picking locations fixed and the bulk locations allocated by the system rules. We have used multiple location codes right across our user base and can set the rules to provide combinations of multiple, mixed and same-code put-aways. Our SWS-trained installation consultants will advise you on the application of bulk, picking, fixed, free, multiple and mixed-multiple locations.
If you have third-party suppliers who need to inspect the stock you are holding on their behalf, why not add the our “SIERRA” module which permits access to SWS on the web from anywhere. This facility has major implications for users with more than one warehouse.