I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

[Ray in Capetown]

I have a client (yes it does happen occasionally) who has a side issue, a need for a program to control their warehousing.

Inventory control across branches and locations is all included in the main business management systems through branch transfers / receiving / sales / issues etc.

This client refers to a Random Access warehouse control system - of goods in warehouses, on pallets, racking and shelves depending on the stage of breaking.
An item could be shown in the main system as, say 22 050 in warehouse.
Within the warehouse crates may contain 20 000 of these and be stacked on two movable pallets. Others may be in 4 cases of 500 each on trolleys and 5 boxes of 10 may be on a fixed shelf.
They want to send people into the warehouse with scanners to scan crate and pallet - move something to another place for breaking open (example) and to scan it to its new location.
There will still be the same 22 050 in the warehouse but a system must have tracked the movement to new location/s.
The idea is to be able to be pointed directly to all locations of any stock item for checking or picking.

I prefer to have a desktop based form ready for input and a simple remote scanner will complete the form with validation.
They are suggesting programmable scanners with various options of digital readout - (even options that write to a URL that can be read from a browser) - which I fear can be cause for more mistakes.

I don't want to re-invent a wheel.
If there is a system of this nature or someone has done this sort of thing - lets look at cost of purchase.
Or pointers in the suggested direction would be welcome. with regards to
Where to place barcode labels and what info they could contain
and immediately knowing the count of stock at a location from a scan or two.

I dont want to increase the admin requirement of splitting the stores and doing issues and receipts between.

Any thoughts welcome
Thanks
Ray

[Clunes]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

I just happen to be doing a quality assurance check on one of our facilities that operates a national system owned by our customer that does the things you describe. This facility has 40000 line items and is managed by location, so items can be stored anywhere and in multiple locations. There is a need to demonstrate a 98% assurance, else penalties in contract apply. What ever the sytem that is used the issue always boils down to the human interface and our inability to sustain quality monitoring and training. This sytem has a PDAS to remoteley enter, move and count. All wireless back to the mother ship. When I use it it works exceptionally well. What I found was the user did not like it because sometimes the sacn would not work and they begin to doubt its ability and end up not using it. I challenged this as it was the lack of a proper supervision or local work instruction process to attack the problem. The actual problem in this case was fading barcodes. Bad scan but no one was re-newing the barcode to remove the problem. There is a huge reluctance at the floor level to trust technology. When this happen there are alot of mistakes that creep in. Pickers take from wrong location when a items are stored next to each other etc.

It is my opinion that the less a human has to do, the less the error gets - monkey see,monkey do must be adhered to. I believe your client is on the right track and there are lots of programs out there (particularly in the mining industry) that do what you want - Very expensive. More than happy to discuss indepth issues off line on this topic. Depending on the real scope of need a home grown solution would also factor user involvement and ownership in the solution. Ownership is a powerful tool.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Thanks Mark
A very informative summary.

I'm suggesting (in brief, to start with)
1. scanning hardware A handheld bluetooth scanner with nothing a user can set/reset. auto store when out of range.
2. Construction of the product packaging label to contain /. prod code //. qty in pack ///.unique label ID. And a location barcode label.
3. then on the host station collect all scans to text. Validate in A5 and perform the actions.
The unique ID will determine a duplicate scan in stocktake mode.

It may be feasable to use the stocktake mode for stock relocation too.?
That won't cater for Crate breaking.
I will get trial handheld scanners , do some further planning and revert.

Thanks
Ray

[Clunes]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

The prime issue to your goal maybe qty in pack. This can be a vary between packs in that the prod code may be same but item could come in packages of 10 or 20 or been broken down.

In our case it is the location that drives the solution. So scan location, scan item, and add qty - changes to the database get effected from this. I just built a quick system for me to run around the facility that can do ramdom stock location and count variation. I use Alpha, a laptop and a bluetooth scanner. I import a range of items that comes out an export from the main system and then I start my checks. I scan location, then scan item, then I have a sheet with barcodes for 1 to 0 with a final code to enter the qty. EG count may be 20 so I scan 2 and then 0 and then the done code. A bit rudimentary, but gets me around a programmable PDAS need. I then produce a mismatch report which will show error in location and item.

By doing this I was able truly find a lot of the root causes for the inaccuracies at stocktackes. Human short cuts, human laziness, poor induction training, no training, slack supervision of process - it goes on and on. My big issue is being able to inflict the pain of change - not system change, but attitude change.

[Ted Giles]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

My big issue is being able to inflict the pain of change - not system change, but attitude change.

Been watching this and I am in awe of you guys pushing the envelope - or scanner in this case. I hope you crack it.
As for the Attitude Change, with this I have some in depth experience as it has been my joy to work with Social Care data for a number of years.
One suggestion Mark.
I tackled poor quality data by sharing the pain. I introduced the concept of Data Owner, and targetted individuals who would be responsible for correcting the data if it was incorrect. The bad data had an owner now.
Reporting weekly on Duplicates for example reduced the incidence. The problem had been that a person cannot resolve 12 months worth of errors, as the "elephant is too big to eat in one sitting". The enormity of the task with annual reporting made them switch off, whereas weekly reports made the problem seem more manageable and the errors were mostly rectified.

[Clunes]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Thanks Ted - I agree if people feel some ownership of the solution, it makes a world of difference. Not so sure my problems are at the floor level with this one though, else there might not be any problems.

[Ted Giles]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

I got a senior member of staff to take the job of policing it on. They couldn't blame all and sundry then.
They also didn't enjoy the finger of scorne being pointed - although we didn't really do that - well sometimes.

[Clunes]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

[martinwcole]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

My own experience with scanners used in similar scenarios is the scanner itself is critical - used by people in a warehouse it has to be virtually unbreakable (dropped repeatedly, etc.) And price seems to be important - the more you pay, the better they scan faded barcodes, etc.

[Ted Giles]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Just a few random thoughts.
The cleaners at the offices use what I would call a Proximity Tag.
Around the building are small buttons which the tag is held against and the location identified.
This ensures that the room has at least been looked at, and could be used to identify where a person was last recorded in a fire alarm situation.
I also remember auto scanning of components with fixed scanners rather than hand held in one factory a while ago.
The tags used by shops to prevent theft could be used as trackers I suspect if they could be coded in some way.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Unfortunately attitude change is not the only pitfall.

I doubt that we are the only place in the world that suffers from a culture of "purposeful" mistakes - used to see if the "Eye In The Sky" picks it up - to find ways to beat the system.
When a box of brass parts has an attractive metal value, "mistakes" don't carry an ownership flag.
Every mistake raises suspicion.
We all try to design accordingly.

I have specified a Honeywell scanner - specified to withstand a 1 metre drop. Guaranteed that will get tested.

What I am trying for here is this to be such an efficient procedure that a traditionally 3 day warehousing stocktake can be done in less than a couple of hours. Offering 100% conditional assurance by using laser printing through wax tape. This method has shown effective 100% scan rate on another client's setup for barcode label printing only.

Provide a handover procedure that means;-
Divorce warehouse stock handling from traditional production movements (ie once items are dispatched from warehouse to the business, they fall under the main business system's procedural tracking)

I have management co-operation and I hope I'm not dreaming. Anyone know of a hole I might fall into please speak up now.

[Clunes]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Theft brings with it a whole new set of boundaries - management and tracking of attractive items, but there is only so much you can put under lock and key. Have they thought of stock accuracy incentives. Ownership of areas and the individual owner receives rewards based on the level of control. Best reward that comes to mind is they keep their job, but if there is a measurable $$ loss over time then no loss is a saving or bonus. Give some of that back. I have seen the effort that goes into preventing shoplifting - it has used the best brains in the world and still the problem is epidemic.

This topic is excellent - may not be Alpha but is truly interesting

[jkletrovets]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

I have a warehouse management system I wrote for a client that is running using industrial motorola scanners based on windows mobile OS. The newer scanners have wireless capapbilities. But, the system I am wrote does not utilize this functionality because the warehouse was remote and did not have LAN access. In the system I wrote, the user makes their "rounds" through the warehouse taking data (scanning bar codes) and then docks the device and a datafile (dbf) is created as a result of the "sync". The sync is not a sync in the truest meaning of the word as it just creates a DBF file with the data they collected. I then have an Alpha routine that reads that file and updates the main Alpha data as necessary. The software I use for the Windows Mobile device is here:

www.syware.com

Check out Barcodeplanet.com for the industrial bar code readers.

With the Syware (Visual CE) software and some of their add-ons(and a wireless LAN connection)...you could make it the data updates basically real time if you wanted to.

The visual CE software is pretty easy to learn.

Regards,

Jeff Kletrovets

[Selwyn Oster]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Simplicity is the developer of Simplicity ERP Cloud Accounting. I note you are located in Cape Town. We are based in Johannesburg.
Simplicity has an inventory module that can be enhanced to handle your specific requirements. Please visit our website www.simplicitycorp.co.za for further details.
Please let me know if you need any further info.

[martinwcole]

Re: I am looking for suggestions for Warehouse management with scanners

Selwyn, was this done with Alpha?