Regarding inventory changes in WMS receiving and putting on shelves scenarios, generally speaking, there are two solutions in the industry, one is to increase inventory when receiving goods, and the other is to increase inventory when putting on shelves.

I made two pictures to illustrate the HE Tuber inventory changes in this area.

Adding inventory when receiving goods introduces the concept of "receiving temporary storage location". After receiving goods, the received products will be placed in this temporary storage location by default, and then the corresponding receiving temporary storage location will be added. Stock location inventory.

However, since this location is a virtual location, when counting inventory, this area of ​​inventory will be regarded as unavailable inventory and cannot be used for outbound delivery.

When it needs to be put on the shelves, it will be moved from the receiving temporary storage location to the actual picking/storage location, and the inventory will also be transferred from the virtual location to the real location. The inventory at this time can be used normally.

The advantage of this solution is that it can achieve more refined control and tracking. As long as the warehouse is put into storage, the responsibility lies with the warehouse, so relevant data records and physical follow-up must be done. At the same time, it can also meet the needs of some warehouses even if they are old. need.

Another option is not to add inventory when receiving the goods, but to add inventory only after it is put on the shelves. The inventory at this time is directly available.

This solution is relatively simple and clear, which can reduce the user's learning cost and also reduce the difficulty of system development. It is suitable for some warehouses with lightweight management. For example, overseas warehouses are more suitable for this model.

However, the disadvantage is that the inventory after receipt is not recorded and traced in the system. If the business volume is large, the goods are numerous, or there are differences, it is difficult to check. At the same time, if there are some scenarios where warehousing is required and the inventory age is calculated, it is not supported. .

Option 2: Increase inventory when put on shelves

In the WMS warehousing and goods receipt business, there is a scenario that is often overlooked, and that is warehousing data collection, also known as: new product maintenance.

New product maintenance means that when the cargo owner's goods are put into the warehouse for the first time, they need to be measured, mainly the size and weight.

Why do we need size and weight?

It is mainly used for subsequent calls to these basic data. For example, if you want to estimate the weight of a package, you need to have the accurate weight of the product; if you want to estimate the size of the packaging material, you also need the size of the product, and when calculating the warehouse rent, you also need the size and weight of these products...

Regarding new product maintenance, there are mainly several important and difficult points that need attention:

How to tell if it is a new product?

What should I do if the dimensions and weight maintained by WMS are not consistent with those provided by the customer?

For the first question, it is mainly necessary to sort out the rules and nodes for new product judgment. Generally speaking, a "new product maintenance table" will be introduced, and a piece of data will be inserted here for all products entered into the warehouse.

If the newly entered product is not in the new product maintenance table, it will be automatically inserted and marked as not undergoing new product maintenance.

The products put into storage refer to the products put into storage forward, that is, the products in the normal put-in order, and the products put in reverse, that is, the products in the return order.

New product maintenance form

For the second question, the core is the final processing method given by the business.

Because there will definitely be errors between the data measured by the warehouse and the data provided by the customer, the key is what is the threshold range of the error.

When the threshold range is met, although the dimensional weight of WMS is inconsistent with the dimensional weight of OMS, the customer's data can be used by default.

If the dimensional weight of WMS and the dimensional weight of OMS are outside the threshold range, then it depends on how the business determines it.

The complicated processing method may be to call back to OMS and let the OMS user handle it, whether to choose to use the data in the warehouse, or to raise objections for retesting.

The simple way to deal with it is to directly use the data measured by WMS and directly notify OMS users that a certain product has been changed to WMS size and weight.

If you choose to use WMS for size and weight, you will also face another problem, that is, different overseas warehouses may stock the same products.

So does each warehouse have to do new product maintenance on its own? If new product maintenance is done, the data in warehouse A and warehouse B are different. So what should customers do if they see a product with multiple sizes and weights?

Our solution to this problem at the time was to measure new products in each warehouse, but by default only the size and weight measured in the first warehouse would be used. If the customer has questions about the size and weight, they can choose to initiate a retest or choose a different one. The data of the warehouse is used as the default data.

In short, the difficulty in the processing logic of new product maintenance is not in the system, but in how to determine the business. If it is a self-developed WMS, it is easier to make a decision. If it is a SaaS WMS, then it is necessary to make flexible configurations to support different businesses. scene.

The warehousing process of WMS generally includes goods receipt, quality inspection and shelving. However, due to the relatively small quality inspection requirements in overseas warehouses, goods receipt and shelving are commonly used.

Receiving goods and putting them on shelves are also divided into PDA processing and Web processing. These two different processing methods require product managers to design different solutions according to different terminals.

In the delivery scenario, since overseas warehouses generally deliver goods by box, the goods received are usually boxes.

By scanning the box mark to identify relevant data, and then automatically bringing out the product details in the box when receiving, you can flexibly enter the actual received quantity, which refers to the quantity of the product.

In the scenario of putting goods on shelves, the boxes when receiving goods are generally used as containers. The core is still to put products on the shelves, which involves the shelving strategy, the judgment of the mixed storage location logic, etc. These are similar to the contents of the domestic warehouse WMS.

In fact, there are still many details that have not been mentioned in the storage and shelf content. The relevant content will be supplemented in subsequent articles.