Warehouse management and monitoring (Warehouse management) with BORA BS

BORA Business Suite manages material flows and warehouses through the MATERIALS system, BORA BS Material Management, with the following modules

• “Warehouse” and “Stocktaking”, Inventory Management,
• “Warehouse management and monitoring”, Warehouse management.
• “Distribution and dispatch”, Shipment Management

Inventory Management controls tangible assets along the supply chain, the supply of production and sales to customers. This reflects the movement of goods “outside” the warehouse and the static picture of the stock of goods as tangible assets, with batch reporting. The latter is checked through the Stocktaking module.

Warehouse management controls the internal placement and movement of goods by bin and location in the warehouse. Shipment Management organises the processes for controlling materials for dispatch after they leave the warehouse.

Architecture

The BORA BS “Warehouse management and monitoring” module (Warehouse Management) handles the dialogue for placing products in the warehouse and prepares reports on the placement processes and on the state of products by location.
Warehouse management and monitoring works with a controlled batch status, which is handled by the BORA BS document system (DMS, Office Organisation).
Office Organisation models and runs processes for a controlled link between documents and roles in a workflow.

Creating the warehouse topology and organisation.

BORA BS Warehouse Management is built on the principle of reflecting the warehouse topology, so that the state and movement of goods in it can be tracked by computer.
Organising warehouse space starts with defining separate zones. Zones are typed according to their purpose. Each zone type has spatial dimensions: one, two or three dimensions.
Organising warehouse space in zones of different types.

Each zone has separate bins or locations. How the bins are laid out in a zone depends on the number of dimensions of the zone and on its physical size.
Each bin in the zone has a certain state, with predefined quality attributes, a fill level, or reaching a preset critical, minimum quantity of products in the bin.

Bin state: reflects the state of the product, if one of the bin’s properties is that it is occupied by a specific product, or the state of the batch in the bin, if only a certain batch of products can be placed in it.
The bin’s property can be linked to the state of the batch in it: checked, in quarantine, blocked.

Quality attributes of the bin.

The quality attributes define the state of the bin and relate to:

1. Storage conditions:

• Time: inherited from the expiry date of the batch stored in the bin;
• Temperature: if the temperature has to be monitored;
• Humidity: if storage humidity has to be monitored, and so on

2. Requirements for the bin’s content: whether or not different products, or the same products from different batches, may be stored. The possible restrictions are:

• Storing only a specific product in a given bin;
• Storing a category of products in one bin;
• Storing a product from a specific batch.

3. Readiness of the bin:

• Under construction;
• Temporarily stopped;
• Active;
• Stopped.

4. Qualification stages of the product/batch in the bin

• In quarantine;
• Released for use in production;
• Rejected for use.

5. Time attribute of the products in the location

• Time of receipt;

Movement of products by location

Placing products from the WAREHOUSE

if the warehouse works by batch

Movement of goods in the warehouse

The movement of goods in the warehouse has two phases, as processes and roles. The warehouse custodian makes the initial proposal for placing the goods, and the warehouse staff place them physically. If the proposed placement cannot be done, the warehouse staff make the change, record it on a paper order for moving products in the warehouse and sign for its completion.
The warehouse custodian’s role is to approve the warehouse staff’s documents by validating them in BORA BS.

Placing and dispatching products in the warehouse

To meet the requirements of the standards in the pharmaceutical industry, documents are needed for internal physical movement between locations in the warehouse, so that goods are clearly identified and traced by batch and location.

Movement of goods:

• Placing goods (receipt into the warehouse);

Delivery of goods;
Returned from production

• Moving goods;

Within the warehouse, from one location to another;

• Picking goods (issue from the warehouse);

Dispatch of goods.

Materials issued for production;

• Correction from stocktaking

The physical movement of goods in the warehouse is recorded with these document types:

451 Placement and dispatch of products by location in the warehouse
4511 Order for placing received products
4513 Order for dispatching products
4514 Order for placing returned products



In this form, in the columns Quantity ordered and From status ordered, the warehouse custodian proposes a strategy for physically placing the goods.
The warehouse staff place the goods physically and sign the paper orders for internal movement.
In the second phase the warehouse custodian enters, if needed, a correction in Quantity done and Status done and confirms the document.

Strategy for placing / dispatching goods in the warehouse by batch

The strategy for placing goods in the warehouse (dispatching goods) is carried out on the basis of a closed warehouse document, the state of the locations in the warehouse and the rules (properties) of the locations.



The choice of placement strategy is matched against the description of the locations and the products offered for placement, and falls into three groups:

• Product properties;
• Order of placement;
• Location properties.

  
Product properties                       Order                                   Location properties
L Single batch only                          V Empty bins only                 V Volume
M Many batches                                     A Topping up bins               W Weight
C One product category only           F FIFO                                           F Facet
P One product type only                        L LIFO                                           N N/A
N N/A                                                         E FEFO

For the pharmaceutical industry, the following strategies can be applied:
 
Placement            Product properties                       Order                                   Location properties
LVN                            L Single batch only                          V Empty bins only                 N N/A
LAN                            L Single batch only                          A Topping up bins               N N/A
LVV                            L Single batch only                          V Empty bins only                 V Volume
LAV                            L Single batch only                          A Topping up bins               V Volume
MAN                          M Many batches                                      A Topping up bins               N N/A
NVN                           N N/A                                                         V Empty bins only N N/A

Dispatch
PEN  P   One product type only          E FEFO         N N/A
LNN  L   Single batch only            N N/A            N N/A
MNN M  Many batches                        N N/A             N N/A

Strategy for placing / dispatching goods in the warehouse by facet

The choice of placement strategy is matched against the description of the locations and the products offered for placement, and falls into three groups:

• Product properties; facet: S, M, L, XL; quantity per facet; package synonyms

• Location properties. facet: S, M, L, XL

Product properties are set as:

• An attribute for the type of packaging, set as a facet

• An attribute for the capacity (number of packages) in one location

• An attribute for placement synonyms: one package is treated as another during placement

Placement route

The route is determined by the following algorithms:
Starting position: 4-01/A/1
Direction of going through the zone: Ascending, Descending
Order of zones: 1,2 ; 3,4: zones of equal priority:

Order of column/zone/bin:
c01/z02/oA, oB,oC,…/ 1,2,3,4
c01/z01/oA, oB,oC,…/ 1,2,3,4
c02/z02/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c02/z01/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c03/z02/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c03/z01/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
-
-
-
c18/z03/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c18/z04/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c17/z03/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c17/z04/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c16/z03/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
c16/z04/oA, oB,oC,… / 1,2,3,4
Order of rows
A,B,C,D,E…
Order of bins:
1,2,3,4

 

Link between the warehouse transaction and the order for placing products

From the warehouse transaction:

• Receipt of goods

Warehouse receipt

Finished goods report

Acceptance protocol

a proposal can be made for an order for placing or, respectively, dispatching products, which suits warehouses that do not work by batch.

 

When the order for placing or dispatching products is created, the placement or, respectively, receipt strategy is carried out.

Link between Distribution, the warehouse transaction and the order for dispatching products

From Distribution of the Distribution type and the warehouse transaction:

• Dispatch of goods:

Dispatch note
Handover protocol

Movement of products in the warehouse

The movement of products in the warehouse is organised with the following document types:

• Movement of products by location in the warehouse
• Order for moving products in the warehouse
• Packing order

Process monitoring

Various lists, functional lists and reports have been created to help monitor the processes
Lists
The lists the program offers are:

• History of events by batch
• State of batches by location

Active reports

The system offers these functional lists:

Batches

The functional lists for batches offer dynamic reports by these criteria:

• History of events by batch
• State of batches by location
• Changes in batch states by location

Warehouse zones and locations
The dynamic reports on zones and locations by warehouse are:

• List of warehouse zones
• Locations by warehouse zone
• Product turnover by location

Movement of products in the warehouse

For the movement of products in the warehouse, the following reports can be made:

• Placement and dispatch of products by location in the warehouse
• Movement of products by location in the warehouse
• State of products by location in the warehouse
• Stocktaking of products by location in the warehouse
• Stock by location in the warehouse