Importation of Mixed Product Containers

A very fast growing customer required to add a Bulk Warehouse remote from their Picking Area in double quick time. Qualtec’s Consultants investigated the overall requirements and found that it would be possible to improve the existing importation process at the same time as catering for the Bulk Warehouse Facility.

Containers would arrive consisting of many lines from multiple purchase orders and sometimes multiple suppliers. The contents would be known in advance, but it was hard to know which stock was needed urgently for Picking and which was destined for Bulk Stock. Carton quantities were also variable and sometimes also had mixed product content.

A System was designed which enabled the Container Content to be built from the expected Purchase Orders and given a Consignment Number.Using information held against the Product itself, an initial report would be produced to allow a degree of pre-planning of the expected work showing how many Pallet Locations would be needed for high volume products, so that these could be pre-allocated within the store.

A different version of the report could be produced on the morning of arrival which was divided into three sections. The first section identified Products which were urgently required in the picking area together with a maximum quantity to transfer to fill the Picking Bin, based on carton quantities if known. The second section listed products which were never stored in the Bulk Store but were not immediately required at the Pick Face, and the third section listed the products destined for the bulk store.

The reports were replicated on the computer stock system with the Goods In Location having sections recording the products and quantities in each at the point of receipt. It was therefore possible to select and transfer the urgently needed stock from Goods In within the Bulk Depot directly to the Picking Depot with minimal re-keying of data by automating the creation of a transfer transaction. Similarly, a second tranche of non-urgent Picking Stock could be handled the same way.

The Items for storage in the Bulk Warehouse could then be built after the urgent items had been dealt with. The quantity of products in cartons would be captured at this point (no variation allowed within pallet for the product) and recorded against the Pallet and Bin Location with Bar Coded labels being produced at the same time.An advantage was gained here such that when replenishment from Bulk was required at the Picking face, the automated Inter-Depot Transfer Mechanism was able to calculate the ideal number of cartons of whatever quantity held to pick, and select the most efficient bin location to pick from.