About Warehouses

Multiple Warehouses

Many companies have more than one location in which to store inventory, so the system allows you to add warehouse locations to the list of warehouses available for various transactions. To add warehouses, use the Warehouses form. You can also use this form to view and update information for all warehouses in the system.

Item Stockroom Locations

Once you have your warehouses established in the system, before you can show inventory in those warehouses, you must establish item stockroom locations. Each warehouse can contain multiple item stockroom locations where you store inventory for lot-tracking and other audit-trail purposes. Add these item stockroom locations using the Locations form.

When you add an item to the system using the Items form, the system automatically creates an item stockroom location for the item, using both the default warehouse (Default Whse) and default location (Default Location) as defined on the Inventory Parameters form.

Item/Warehouse Records

When you add an item to the system using the Items form, the system automatically creates an item/warehouse association (or record) for the item. For this, the system uses the default warehouse as defined in the Default Whse field on the Inventory Parameters form. As mentioned in the previous section, the system also automatically creates an item stockroom location.

If you want to stock the item at other warehouses, you must create an item/warehouse association for each warehouse location in which you want to store the item. To create these item/warehouse associations, use the Item/Warehouse form. You can then use the Item Stockroom Locations form to add quantities of the item to locations within the designated warehouse.

Externally Controlled Warehouses

If Controlled by External Warehouse is selected, operations at this warehouse are controlled by an external application, and many standard CloudSuite Industrial operations are not performed.

For a list of the forms and operations that are changed by this option, see the topic on Using an External Warehouse Application..

Consignment Warehouses

There are two ways to utilize a consignment warehouse:

• You can specify some of your warehouses as vendor consignment warehouses, where vendor material is stored until you decide to consume/purchase them.
• You can specify a customer's warehouse as a customer consignment warehouse, where you store some of your materials until the customer decided to consume/purchase them.

Warehouse Defaults

On forms where you can select a warehouse (in other words, where the warehouse field is not just display-only), many of them use a default warehouse setting. In all cases, you can override this default setting by selecting a different warehouse.

The values for these default warehouse settings come from various places, depending on the form. The following table lists those forms with default warehouse settings for new records and where the default settings come from.

Default Warehouse Settings

About the "Current Warehouse"

Many forms take as their default value the warehouse that the system recognizes as the "current warehouse," which can change on a per-user, per-session basis. When designating the "current warehouse," the system uses the following rules:

• When you log in, the system designates the warehouse from the your profile as the "current warehouse" for that session.

This setting is defined in the Whse field on the Additional Info tab of the Users form.

• If that field is blank, the system uses the Default Whse field on the General tab of the Inventory Parameters form.
• At any point after logging in, you can change the "current warehouse" setting for that session using the Change Warehouse form.

Setting Warehouse Defaults Manually

The system offers several ways to manually change warehouse default settings. You can:

• Change the system default warehouse using the Default Whse field on the General tab of the Inventory Parameters form.
• Change a user's default "current warehouse" setting using the Whse field on the Additional Info tab of the Users form.
• As a user, change the "current warehouse" setting for your current session using the Change Warehouse form. .
• Change the default warehouse for a range of customers using the Set Default Warehouse form.
• Change the default warehouse for a range of vendors using the Set Default Warehouse form.
• Change the default warehouse for a range of users using the Set Default Warehouse form.

How MRP, APS, and MPS Processor Use Warehouses

The MRP, APS, and MPS Processor planning functions view on-hand inventory as the total on-hand quantity (that is, On Hand - Qty Reserved for customer orders) at all nettable stockroom locations across all warehouses at the site.

Dedicated Remote Warehouses

Warehouses with dedicated inventory are useful for serving demands tied to that warehouse and which do not affect planning for the remainder of the site. In the example above, suppose you wanted to "protect" the inventory at warehouse C so it could be used only for specific customer orders. To do this, select the Dedicated Inventory check box on the Warehouses form for that warehouse.

When you run the MRP or APS Planning or MPS Processor, the system ignores the inventory in the dedicated-inventory warehouse. Likewise, these planning functions ignore all demands and supplies that specify a dedicated-inventory warehouse.

Dedicated Inventory and Planning of Transfer Orders

• Outgoing transfer orders are not planned as demands at the current, local site if the warehouse specified in the From Whse field is a dedicated-inventory warehouse. However, that transfer order is planned as a supply if it is sent to a warehouse at the same site that is a non-dedicated inventory warehouse (that is, if the To Whse field contains a warehouse in which the Dedicated Inventory check box is not selected).
• Incoming transfer orders are not planned as supplies at the current, local site if the warehouse specified in the To Whse field is a dedicated-inventory warehouse. However, that transfer order is planned as a demand if it is received from a warehouse at the same site that is a non-dedicated inventory warehouse (that is, if the From Whse field contains a warehouse in which the Dedicated Inventory check box is not selected).

Distribution Warehouses

Distribution warehouses are dedicated-inventory warehouses that are designated to plan intra-site transfer using the transit time between the default warehouse and a distribution warehouse. For these transfers, the original demand is ignored, but the pre-planning process generates planned transfer orders based upon the demand at the distribution warehouse. New planned intra-site transfers represent demand for the planning engines.

Sourcing Percentages of Planned Orders

You can set rules that automatically split planned transfer orders for a certain item or product code between multiple sites and warehouses, specifying what percentage of the order comes from which site/warehouse.

Moving Inventory Between Locations

Use transfer orders to move inventory from one warehouse to another (within the same site or across sites).

A hypothetical shipping and receiving scenario, in which both warehouses are within the same site, is shown below:

• Warehouse A transfers to Warehouse B.
• Warehouse A ships to a Transit Location, which is maintained at Warehouse B.
• When Warehouse B receives the item, it is moved from the Transit Location to a Stock Location within Warehouse B.

The following diagram shows this process.

Moving Quantities Between Locations

To move inventory between:

• Different sites, warehouses within the same site, or locations within a single warehouse, you can use the Multi-Site Quantity Move utility.
• Two warehouses within the same site, you can use the Warehouse to Warehouse Bulk Transfer utility.
• Different locations within a single warehouse, you can use the Quantity Move utility.

Transferring Lot-Tracked Items

When you transfer a lot-tracked item from a warehouse at one site to a warehouse at another site, there are issues to consider regarding whether the lot number exists at each site and in which location it will be created.

See the topic About Multi-Site Transfer Order Lot Tracking for several examples that illustrate this process.

Counting Warehouse Inventory

Keeping count of inventory is done at the warehouse level. There are two primary ways to take a count of the existing inventory at each warehouse:

• Performing a cycle count: Cycle counting involves counting your inventory quantities at each warehouse and stock location on a scheduled, cyclical basis. You can define cycle-count triggering options at each warehouse to instruct the system to create a cycle count record each time a particular inventory event occurs at that warehouse.

  For more information, see the topic About Cycle Counts.

• Performing a physical inventory: Doing a physical inventory involves someone doing an actual physical count of the inventory in a warehouse. This process involves printing out tags and/or sheets for personnel to take an actual count of the inventory in stock and then manually entering that information into the physical inventory system.

  For more information, see the topic About Physical Inventories..

Cycle Counting at Warehouses

Cycle counting involves counting your inventory quantities at each warehouse and stock location. At each warehouse, you can define cycle-count triggering options that instruct the system to create a cycle count record each time a particular inventory event occurs at that warehouse.

EXAMPLE: The system can create a count record each time a receipt or issue transaction is processed against an item or each time the on-hand level falls to zero. For more information, see the the help for the Cycle Type field on the Warehouses form.