Technology

Deliveries can be received against purchase orders or advanced shipping notes (ASNs). Many different flavours of goods receipt are support out of the box, to handle a wide range of scenarios, including:

• Pallet receipt using licence plates
• Single and multi-line cross docking
  
• Item by item receipt
  
• Product lot and serial number capture
  
• Unit of measure capture (e.g. inner/outer cartons)
  
• Receipt to inspection/quarantine
  
• Damaged stock handling
  
• Provisional stock receipt using ASNs
  
• Combined receipt and putaway

Putaway can be directed, with location chosen by the system, or assisted, with locations chosen by the user with help from the system.

Putaway location selection can follow a simple scheme, but can also be tailored to meet sophisticated requirements.

Putaway rules can be based on:

• Location or area preference settings
• The presence of existing stock and the remaining space
• Item, case or pallet receipt
• product characteristics

The slotting logic can tie stock keeping units (SKUs) to specific locations, ensure popular SKUs are spread across the pickface and  that items from different batches are never held together.

OrderFlow WMS gives you complete control of your slotting logic.

Our customers rely on OrderFlow’s stock management capability to drive warehouse activity and to know where everything is, where it’s been and where it’s going.

Stock is recorded on the system according to the location, product, product lot and unit of measure.

Each stock record has a status, which can be changed without any physical movements.

Each movement or adjustment is individually recorded, as is each stock status change.

OrderFlow features a powerful stock move task framework, which is used for many of the warehouse operations, including putaway and replenishment.

The WMS also features an advanced stock checking module, which allows for a coherent, targeted and efficient stock checking regime, with each location stock check individually recorded.

OrderFlow ensures you to get your orders out of the door quickly, with minimal effort, and in the right order.

• Complete visibility of the current status of your order pool
• Automatically assign each order a target despatch time and track the progress of the despatch team towards cutoff
• Identify and prioritise urgent orders
• Continually track and refine the time taken to fulfil each order

OrderFlow is designed to support B2C fulfilment operations that drive complex business processes in high volume environments.

OrderFlow provides all of the picking options you need to reach peak efficiency in your warehouse.

• Paper or handheld picking options
• Individual or batch picking
• wave picking
• Zone-based picking to consolidation
• Cluster picking
• Picking to put wall

Most commonly used is batch picking, with powerful options ranging from:

• Zone-specific batches
• Single product batches
• Multi-product batches for specific products only
• Batching by priority, courier, destination, etc.
• Timed release of batches

Orders can be assigned to picking locations to minimise picking distance, helping you to pick more orders with less effort.

At the same time OrderFlow strives for every ounce of efficiency at the packing desk, where each keystroke counts.

For most orders, this involves scanning each product at the packing desk. Other related features include:

• Non-barcoded product identification (using images)
• Lot or serial number capture
• Package identification during the ‘scan to pack’
• Auto-printing of despatch notes and labels as the packing desk
• Scanning of consumables

For large orders, OrderFlow also allows for a persisted scan to pack, with each scan individually recorded.

This allows for packers to take a lunch or overnight shift break midway through the scan to pack operation, and pick up where they left off afterwards.

OrderFlow’s transportation module allows individual shipments to be tracked from your packing desks through the outgoing area and onto the relevant courier transportation.

Handheld processes allows users to sort packed shipments onto pallets, which in turn are scanned onto the individual trailers and vans departing from the warehouse.

OrderFlow allows you to exert the right level of control over returned items.

Options around returns functionality include:

• Returns with or without a return merchant authorization (RMA)
• Pre-notification of returns to be received
• Validation against outgoing orders and/or quantities
• Capture of return reason code and condition, with image
• Lot and serial number capture on returned items
• Third-party notification on returned items

The lot tracking module can require expiry date and other batch specifc information to be captured at goods-in as part of the receipting process.

Other related features include:

• ensuring the stock assigned to different types of customer order has sufficient remaining shelf life
• ensuring rules about whether or not different lots of the same SKU can be held together are enforced
• where appropriate, making sure customer orders are all fulfilled from a single lot
• Identifying when items are approaching their useful shelflife and managing the process of removing them from stock