Facts Warehouse Management System
FactsWMS is a very user friendly Warehouse Management Application. It tracks the day to day operation activities at the WDC (warehouse distribution center).- Being a totally automated system, the menu options are shown by graphical user interfaces (GUI). And this doubles the operational efficiency of the distribution system at the warehouse.
- The productivity and the accuracy of the operations at the WDC will improve drastically since the inventory movements of every items is being tracked in one consolidated database. It plays a vital part of the supply chain management system.
- We can customize our FactsWMS system for almost all the industry verticals like manufacturing, trading, distribution, service and retail enterprises, government agencies and others.
- You can customize the bar code and airway bill printing which increases the accuracy to 99.7% eliminating the manual intervention to write down the items list and the errors associated with it.
- Right information is the key to the success for any organization in today’s complex business scenarios. How well the information is managed and utilized reflects upon timely decisions, effective management and efficient planning by an effective ware house management solution.
Features of our FactsWMS software system:
I. Receiving Operation:
FACTS WMS has functionality to receive both the ASN & Non-ASN shipments from vendors seamlessly.
a) Importing In- Transit Information
Being integrated to other third party systems, FactsWMS can captures the advance shipment notifications (ASN) or the material in transit details.
b) Receipt of the item from the vendor
DC has the details of the goods / merchandise from the vendor. Having the in transit information in the system, it know the item list and details in the carton box. Upon receipt the stock is automatically validated against the ASN.
1. Receipt of ASN from vendors:
a) Importing In- Transit Information
Being integrated to other third party systems, FactsWMS can captures the advance shipment notifications (ASN) or the material in transit details.
b) Receipt of the item from the vendor
DC has the details of the goods / merchandise from the vendor. Having the in transit information in the system, it know the item list and details in the carton box. Upon receipt the stock is automatically validated against the ASN.
2. Receipt of non-ASN from vendors:
Upon receipt of the cartons from the vendor, a unique carton number is assigned to each carton. The other information like the name of the vendor, content/item in the carton can be entered into the system which will help in generating a print out to be stuck on the carton.3. Routing of the inventory:
FactsWMS not only helps in getting the item details on the carton, but also helps with the destination of the carton. This information at the right time plays a vital role in reducing the dispatch time of the item to the customer. There are many factors which should be considered before sending a carton to a particular destination and FactsWMS validates those details:- Whether there is any open rush request against the SKU contained in the carton. If yes, then FactsWMS intimates to sends this carton to the destination associated with the rush request.
- Next the system is scheduled to spot checking on random cartons which can be selected. The sampling percentage can be defined based on the origin of the carton or the contents of the carton.
- If the carton is not selected in any of the criteria, then the system will intimate to route the carton to the normal area which can be defined by the user.
4. Cross Docking (RUSH):
If the goods are assigned with a top most priority, the system intimates to send the goods received directly to the forward pick location bypassing the locating and the quality verification process.II. Verification & Spot Checking Process
Presuming that the majority of the merchandises comes from the vendors, it is important to ensure that the quality and quantity of incoming items have to be checked. This process helps to ensure that the stock is ready for the shipping stage. Below are the features available:
- Checking based on customizable sample algorithm
- To address specific problems and situations, there is a provision to make amendment with due authorization process flow.
- The verification process ensure that the cartons are routed to the specific destination/location.
III. Put away / locating process
- From the reception area of the ware house, the pallets / cartons are picked and scanned on to the system.
- They are compared with the DC to ensure the receipt of the items.
- The items are then taken to the appropriate designated location.
- FactsWMS has both the option to allocate / assign the storage location to the SKU.
- The locator will be guided to the location when the palette / carton containing the SKU are received in the DC.
IV. Assigning and managing locations to an SKU
- With a graphical interface on our FactsWMS, the locations are created in your DC. The whole management of the locations is simple with a graphical map of the locations. This helps in assigning or allocating the SKU to a specific location. Users can create location ID’s and define parameters for multiple locations. This is only possible due to the highly flexible global location set-up and maintenance function available in FactsWMS.
- The properties of SKU can be easily managed through this interface (Eg. fast moving, slow moving, weight, volume, etc.) to subsequently represent the details on the statutory documents.
- FactsERP automatically generates requests for filling the picking locations, subsequent to assigning the locations on the system.
V. Dynamic and Fixed Assignment to different locations
- FactsWMS supports both dynamic assignments and a fixed assignment to the locations.
- In case you have high load of SKU shipments, you may want to logically take care of some SKU’s for the current time and the other SKU’s as and when required.
- Therefore, FactsWMS has the capability to dynamically take care of the SKU’s for which the picking waves have been assigned by the shipping manager.
VI. Automatic Integrated Restocking capability
- As a key feature, the re-stocking occurs automatically based on the wave picking calculation / formulae set on the system.
- FactsWMS generates picks to bring forward the picked bins. This happens during the wave pick calculation process.
- Simultaneously the system will calculate the balance stock available in those forward pick bins and gives the indication to re-stock as and when needed.
- FactsWMS releases the integrated restock indication for a wave. At the same time the picks for the waves are also released. This ensures that the restocks and the order picks occurs together.
VII. Restocking Rules can be identified and set
- In the cases of the SKU’s, which are designated locations dynamically, the re-stocking is done only as per the order quantity.
- For the fixed SKU’s, the restocking requests are automatically generated. This happens, as and when any pieces are removed from the locations by the picking process.
VIII. Importing Order Specification from Host System
- FactsWMS has the capability to be integrated with your existing applications to receive the order details.
- The process will involve migrating of data from your host system and importing them after formatting the data set generated from your current system to our prescribed format.
IX. Creating Order Waves process
- Our FactsWMS system downloads the order information by integrating with your existing applications.
- Selection of the orders for creating the picking wave is possible due to the extra rich graphical interface. Selection of the desired orders for creating the wave can be easily done by the shipping manager. He can use a filter criteria like customer, DC, DC cancel date, small order, large orders, international orders, etc. The view for selecting the pick slips can also be customized accordingly.
- The inventory status are shown on the system while the waves are created giving an indication to the shipping manager. This will help the manager to take the decision to process the wave as it is, or wait for the new stock to arrive. Therefore the shipping manager will have a clear indication if the wave to be initiated can be fully picked up in one pass or not.
- When initiating a wave for being processed, the system indicates if the SKU’s are fronted for that wave or not and requests restock accordingly.
- When making the wave available for picking, decision can be taken for paper based picking or RF based picking.
- In the case of RF based picking, while the waves are made available for processing, the system creates shipping cartons. The formulae Pick to carton, uses item weight and dimensions to select the shipping carton prior to the order picking process. Items are then picked directly into the shipping cartons. When this picking process is complete the carton sealed eliminates a formal packing operation.
X. RF – Based Picking
- Based on the best and the quickest logic path, FactsWMS will provide a list of appropriate id carton numbers to be picked.
- FactsWMS prints the carton content label and UCC at this juncture.
- The system first looks at the pool of cartons in the selected wave when the user initiates a picking list from a particular order wave.
- Then it looks at the SKU current requirement for each box. It checks the locations where the SKU’s are available in the forward pick area.
- Collating all this information together, FactsWMS software system attempts to us the listed number of boxes which can be picked from the same aisle or visiting a minimum number of locations in the ware house.
XI. Guided Picking process
- FactsWMS software system guides the picker to the forward pick location where the SKU’s are to be collected from.
- The system prompts the picking agent to scan the SKU’s, then the carton box and then location.
- Audible tones are provided to help the picker during the scanning process prompting him the next step. The audible signal can be identified, since they are different from the correct scan and for the improper scan and different sound when a box / location is completely scanned.
- As the picking agent completes this picking task, FactsWMS system automatically detects the completion stage of boxes and directs the picker to mark the box as Red in case any box is under picked.
- Zone wise picking can also be done.
- The system has RF integration for paper less picking.
- Bar code location and product verification is also confirmed in this process.
XII. Paper Based Picking list
Picking
- Before the wave to be picked, the picking list are printed.
- Each picking list has the specific locations in a sorted fashion to help the picking agent to optimize his picking path.
- Each carton picked are packed into boxes.
- Each SKU is scanned and placed into the cartons, which ensures 100% accuracy.
- All customer specific constraints can be taken care at this stage. (Example, minimum / maximum pieces per box, etc.)
- Quick check functionality are provided for large orders.
XIII. Process of Validating/confirming Boxes
- While undergoing through various processes in the life cycle we need to check and identify the variances and inconsistencies.
- At this final stage the boxes are checked before forwarding them to the dock area for being shipped. It is important to ensure that the order is as per the requirement of the customer and this order fulfillment is an important part of the process.
XIV. Shipment of goods are possible with ease
- Our FactsWMS software system supports both LTL and small shipments.
- Shipping documents are automatically printed.
- In case of small shipments, our FactsWMS has developed API’s for uploading the details on to the Fedex server. Thus we will be able to tracking the goods movement from the carrier service.
- Based on the order progress the shipping manager will create the Bill of Lading and the Ship of order.
- Consecutive to the orders being processed, the system will upload the shipping details on to the clients system.
- The need for scanning any purchased orders (PO) is limited
- With the rich interface the shipping manager will have to select the order he wants to ship by creating the BOL’s and remove any PO from BOL, etc.
- Creation process of Master Bill of Lading and consolidating BOL’s are some of the key features in the modules.
- The interface of monitoring the process flow is possible in our FactsWMS. Track each wave and ensure order is fulfilled before the shipment of the goods. The shipping specific operations at the warehouse will be support in this module.
XV. Accurate inventor count
- By the help of the RF cycle count module FactsWMS helps to take regular inventory counting of stock.
- Our RF cycle counting provides accurate count of the product and physical inventories which therefore avoids/eliminates the ware house to be shutdown.
- Count can be initiated as per location wise, SKU wise or by any other user supplied criteria.
- Quick and accurate inventory counts can be got with the help of our cycle counting with RF terminal operator. As the RF Cycle Counting function is performed, FactsWMS freezes product locations for the time being to ensure proper counting in that location for a particular product. And can be released after counting is complete.
XVI. Web Based Reports are possible
- FactsWMS provides a customised and comprehensive set of reports with a detailed list of activities happening in the DC / warehouse
- FactsWMS detects the errors and bottleneck in the operation which will therefore increase the through put of the warehouse helping the management to review, control and plan. Below are the main advantages of a details reporting system:
Supports the decision making process in planning.
Complete eagle’s view of the inventory at the DC.
DC activities are tracked which helps in creating new strategies.
Marketing department can easily strategize their selling efforts.
Total insight into the productivity and profitability of the DC.
Labor planning and controlling them becomes simple. Wages to the laborer can be linked directly to their efficiency.
Eagle’s view of the exact inventory position according to aging, quantity and quality can be accessed through the report generation helping the management to take control of any situation.
Providing a complete status-co of the shipment and their current stages in the processing the requests can be got.
Complete eagle’s view of the inventory at the DC.
DC activities are tracked which helps in creating new strategies.
Marketing department can easily strategize their selling efforts.
Total insight into the productivity and profitability of the DC.
Labor planning and controlling them becomes simple. Wages to the laborer can be linked directly to their efficiency.
Eagle’s view of the exact inventory position according to aging, quantity and quality can be accessed through the report generation helping the management to take control of any situation.
Providing a complete status-co of the shipment and their current stages in the processing the requests can be got.
XVII. Interface And Integration is possible (Import & Export)
- FactsWMS has the capability to be integrated to any third party systems to capture the data for processing them.
- Order information can be downloaded from the system.
- From the data from our FactsWMS, the shipping information can be uploaded to any third party shipping links / servers.