WISE WAREHOUSE SLOTTING

Slotting is the process of determining the best location in a warehouse to store faster moving items that are picked frequently by dedicating certain easily accessible locations that are closer to the Shipping/Packing areas. Slotting can be applied to dedicated pick locations (Pick-face) locations or generally to all locations.

Benefits of WISE Warehouse Slotting:
• Identify Fast Moving Items
• Reduce Picking and Travel Time
• Reduce Number of Replenishments
• Reduce Manual Data Entry

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SLOTTING OBJECTIVES:

Wise already support rules based putaway and replenishment which can easily use slotting rules and results to direct product dynamically to non-dedicated random storage locations. Therefore there is no need in WISE to apply special slotting rules to the general bulk storage locations and we will limit the slotting functionality at this point to deciding dedicated pick-face replenishment locations. The pick-face locations are defined in WISE and allow the user to define the Min/Max quantities of that item in the location, and this information is used to generate replenishments to the pick-face as needed.

WORK BALANCING

By balancing activity across multiple pick areas based on the number of picks per day you reduce congestion in the areas. WISE will have the ability to review items by ABC and by number of picks. WISE can then take a location range and spread out the items based on number of picks. An example would be every 5th location place a high moving pick. Or you could set it up by having a round robin of 3 A items 2 B Items.

SEASONAL ITEMS

This can be done by running a date range. You will capture a date range in WISE by item or product group and export it to a excel spreadsheet where you will be able to show to show spikes and decline of items during a specific time frame.

SLOTTING BY FORECAST

You take the sales projection by month for an item and slot according. By using the Royal 4 current sales forecast tool it will give the projected sales of an item. If the item is new it can be used to calculate the usage the same way we calculate number picks. If the item has picking historical data we can then compare actual versus forecast to come up with a blend for slotting.

ABC CLASSIFICATION PROCESS:

A number of data elements and inputs are required for an effective slotting algorithm, some can be calculated by the system and some need to be maintained by the user. The parameters include: From/To a range of Dates, Data Source using either Picking tasks or Packing tasks and Method: Number of Tasks or by Quantity. Inventory will be classified by ABC classification.

GOLDEN AREA

Definition of primary locations (Golden Area) is done in WISE by maintaining the correct table and works fine for re-slotting of existing pick-faces. The primary locations may include floor level locations, flow racks, cross dock locations or locations very close to shipping area, or locations that are faster to pick from.

INVENTORY HISTORY

The historical time frame is used to analyze movement. This is best done with a date range to allow you to look at as much or as little data as you want and to allow you to look at specific disconnected periods for seasonality (for example run for last summer to get this summer’s re-slotting).

RESERVE INVENTORY

Definition of the reserve amount required. For example you can ask for a full day worth of product so replenishments are done once a day. The larger this number the more space is required for an item and fewer items can have dedicated locations. A rolling average over a period time of time should be taken into consideration. This levels out the average amount of inventory needed on a daily bases which will eliminate over utilization of a pick face.

LOCATIONS

The item cube, pallet, each, case quantity, and location capacity. This information is mostly already in WISE and can be used (if available) to decide the min/max quantity and the number of dedicated slots (locations).

SLOTTING CALCULATIONS

The slotting screen holds the result of the slotting calculations and allows you to add or change data as needed. Your changes may be needed for items that the system does not have sufficient information about and would not have in the results, such as new items, Special promotions, and discontinued items. The table has the location number, current item number, current MIN/MAX, future suggested location.

FORWARD PICKING

Reduce number of replenishments required by storing enough quantity of a fast moving item in the primary pick area.

ID FAST MOVERS

Definition of what is a fast moving item, this can be done by number of picks (which is most common) or total quantity picked.