WAREHOUSE FUNCTIONS

It is very important to the warehouse operation and work flow that pre planning the design and lay out is necessary to efficiently handle all the warehousing functions.

Receiving – Includes the physical unloading of incoming shipments, checking, recording receipts, and deciding where the goods are to be stored in the warehouse.  It can also include unpacking and repackaging, quality control checks, and temporary quarantine storage for goods awaiting clearance by quality control.

Inspection – Quality and quantity check of the incoming goods for their required characteristics

Repackaging – Incoming product lot may have non-standard packaging  that does not allow storage in a specified location in warehouse.  In these instances the goods will have to be pre packed in unit loads or pallet loads suitable for storage.

Put Away –Binning and storing the goods in their respective locations including temporary locations away from the docking area.

Storage – Binning and storing the goods in their respective locations.

Order Picking / Selection – Goods are selected from order picking stock in the required quantities and at the required time to meet the customer order requirements.  Picking often involves breaking bulk operations, when goods are received from suppliers in whole pallet quantities, but ordered by customers in smaller quantities.  Order picking is crucial in achieving high customer satisfaction  levels.  Good design and management picking systems and operations are important and vital for efficient and effective warehouse operations.

Sortation – This enables goods coming into the warehouse to be sorted into customer orders immediately on arrival.  The goods then go directly to order collation.

Packing and Shipping – Picked goods per customer orders are consolidated and packed according customer order requirements.  It is then shipped per customer orders and shipping destinations.

Cross-Docking – Moving products directly from receiving to shipping dock, these products are not stored in specific locations.

Replenishing – The movement of goods in larger order quantities, for example a whole pallet at a time, from reserve storage to order picking, to insure that order picking locations do not become empty.  Maintaining stock availability for order picking is important for achieving high levels of order fill.