Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

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Posted on by ENSHEPARD

What's simple and best way to handle item locations: bins, shelf, etc.
Temporarily, we are storing data in Shelf No on the Item card.

Current Status
1) Cargo company delivers Special Orders to client's 3rd party warehouse/delivery service
2) Warehouse updates Quantity received and storage location for Items per PO
3) Warehouse forwards updated POs to client
4) Client updates PO for Quantity Received and storage location at warehouse
4a) Items for store showroom will require transfer from Warehouse to store location

Issue
Client has 5 physical "warehouse" locations:
A) 2 for store Showroom and Storage Room
B) 3 for 3rd party warehouse: warehouse, drop shipment, and sale

Item Locations:
-- store creates Item location for products sent for (1) Showroom Floor and (2) Storage
-- warehouse creates item locations and stores all products in B above

Any thoughts/suggestions/etc. would be greatly appreciated.

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Answers (1)

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Ben Baxter 4,959 Super User 2024 Season 2 on at

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RE: Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

You could simplify some of your processing here.

For the 3PL Warehouse. If you don't manage the physical movement, placement, and picking of product, then you don't need to know the Item's exact location in the 3PL's warehouse. Hopefully they are tracking the specifics of the product. You would only need to track that product was received and eventually shipped (transferred) to your store Location. This means you can leave everything off for this Location. You will still receive and ship (transfer) out of that Location, but you won't be doing picks, put-aways, etc. to specific Bins. The 3PL's system will be tracking that level of detail.

For the Showroom/Storage Room, you could make that a single Location. The Bin Codes can make it clear whether it is a Showroom (SH-01) or Storage (ST-01) bin. This avoids having to do a transfer order for the product to move from Storage to Showroom. Also, if someone needs to pull from the Storage area to fill a client's request, they are only changing the Bin Code on the transaction rather than processing a full Transfer between Locations.

The downside to this method is you don't get to control inventory level by Bin, only by Location. If the Showroom sells out, there won't be anything to tell you to move product from Storage to Showroom. Depending on what you sell this may or may not be a big deal. In the previous scenario where you sold something out of Storage, you could also change the Location on the Transaction to pull from Storage.

You should discuss this with your Business Central partner to get their input. Obviously there are a lot of options and flexibility within the system. Either way you go, be sure to use SKU's per Location, it gives you a lot more flexibility with the MRP calculations.
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ENSHEPARD 55 on at

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RE: Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

Hi, Steve

Thanks for the thoughtful responses to my newbie questions. I appreciate your generous sharing of knowledge, experience and expertise.
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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

Hello,

To use Bins you first must setup the Bin Codes, by Location. Each Location can have defined Bins you or your 3PL can help with. This will help with locating the Item, in each Location, in each Bin. As for Stockkeeping Units (SKU), when you have more than 1 Location it is best practice to setup a Stockkeeping Unit (SKU) for the items. This way you can establish the planning parameters specific to an Items Location. This could also mean that the Unit Cost could be different per Location.

The 3PL Bins could be Showroom, Storage or Warehouse. As for the error message, you have not setup the Bins for the Location. Go to the Location Card, and setup the Bins.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Steve
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evenshepard 135 on at

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RE: Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

Steve...

Additional question: Can Bins in the Showroom be set up so that you can manually enter the location code "randomly". Bin seems to require that you have designated locations, otherwise I get an error message below
evenshepard 135 on at

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RE: Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

Steve,

Thanks for the detailed answer. Could you expand a little on the Bin with SKU approach. The 3rd party warehouse is a

very basic operation, little is automated, which is why they fax annotated PO printouts to client.

Below is a sample of the inventory data; item locations begin with the Location code (0=WH, 1=Showroom, 2=Storage, etc.):

Also, 90% of sales are special orders.
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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Item Locations Bins/Shelf - Inventory/Warehouse Management

Hello,

Based on your overview above, you could setup each Location that require Bins so you know where the Items are within each Location (Showroom, Storage, 3 3PL's). You can also setup Stockkeeping Units (SKU) which you can define if Storage fulfills Showroom inventory so you get a Transfer Order to fulfill needs. You can automate this with planning setup so the Requisition Worksheet can tell the planner a Transfer is needed.

The Shelf No. is nice but Bins are more appropriate for Warehousing and documents can print the Bin No.

What other questions or concerns do you have? The 3PL warehouse could all move to EDI processing and all the paperwork eliminated for receipt of Inventory and Shipments to Customers.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Steve