Warehouse Wisdom Wednesday!
Let's breakdown some warehouse basics.
This week: We're talking replenishment.
If you've been following along so far we've unloaded our goods, we've processed them into inventory and we've put them away into our storage locations.
While your inbound delivery could be considered a replenishment for your warehouse overall, a replenishment inside the warehouse is making sure that your pick locations are adequately stocked for order fulfillment.
While there are varying different types of locations or bins that you could have in a warehouse, for this explanation we will simplify it to two types. Pick locations and bulk locations.
When utilizing a warehouse management system (WMS), you can setup your location profiles and designate the location type. If you designate a location as a pick location then orders will allocate to those locations to pick from. For a bulk location or sometimes referred to as a reserve location, orders will not allocate to them.
Replenishment is the simple act of moving material from the bulk locations into the pick location for order allocation.
What triggers replenishment?
Visual trigger 👀 - in more manual process flows, someone can visually check pick locations for low stock and then execute the replenishment. This could also be done by a card system where pickers place the card in a designated area for replenishers to take action from. Could also be known as Kanban.
Vocal trigger 🗣 - picker gets on the radio or tells someone a location is empty. Probably the simplest trigger but it happens!
Systemic trigger 💻 - based on rules setup within your system, replenishment tasks are generated for workers to follow. This could be a systemic flag that a picker can select on their device or this could be an automated preset level already setup for that location.
If you are utilizing a systemic trigger then most likely you will need to understand and utilize the concept of a minimum and maximum stock level (min/max). This would also be the "preset level" mentioned above. This involves understanding velocity of the sku and also the cubic volume you can fit into a location.
Once the min is hit for that location, the system automatically triggers a replenishment task to occur in order to get the location back up to its max level.
Overall, your goal with replenishment should be to minimize the amount of replenishment being done as it can potentially hold up the picking process.
BIG NOTE: Whoever is doing replenishment should ensure that when completed, the picking location is completely prepped for the picker. Trash removed, cartons opened if needed, eaches properly place in bins if not staying in the carton, etc. This goes a long way!
🧠 Want to go deeper on replenishment and min/max?
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