About Warehouses

In the context of SyteLine, a warehouse is a location within a site that can contain on-hand inventory. This overview includes information about warehouses and how they can be used in the system. Subtopics include:

• Warehouses and Locations
• Consignment Warehouses
• Warehouse Defaults
  • Default Warehouse Settings
  • About the "Current Warehouse"
  • Setting Warehouse Defaults Manually
• How MRP, APS, and MPS Processor Use Warehouses
• Moving Inventory Between Locations
• Counting Warehouse Inventory

Warehouses and Locations

Each site has at least one warehouse, designated as MAIN, which is created during system installation. In most cases, this also becomes the default, or primary, warehouse for the site, but you can change the default. For information about default warehouse settings, see Warehouse Defaults

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.

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.

For more information regarding the setup of customer and vendor consignment warehouses, see Consignment Warehouse Setup.

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.

NOTE: This "current warehouse" setting is valid only on a user-session basis. That is, the "current warehouse" setting can be different for each user logged in to the system. Also, this setting is only in effect as long as you are logged in. After you log out, the setting reverts to your default user setting, if any, when you log in again.

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. See About the "Current Warehouse".
• As a user, change the "current warehouse" setting for your current session using the Change Warehouse form. See About the "Current Warehouse".
• 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 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.

EXAMPLE: Suppose you have a customer order for 150 of an item. The item is stored at three warehouses, A, B, and C. Warehouse A contains 50 on-hand, warehouse B contains 75 on-hand, and warehouse C contains 40 on-hand. When you run MRP or APS Planning or the MPS Processor, the system allocates on-hand from all three warehouses to satisfy the demand, and no planned orders are needed. This planning behavior occurs regardless of any specific warehouse specified on the customer order.

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. For more information, see Creating Source Rules for Planned Orders.

Moving Inventory Between Locations

Use transfer orders to move inventory from one warehouse to another (within the same site or across sites). See Transfer Orders Overview and Multi-Site Overview for more information about transfer orders.

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 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 About Cycle Counting.
• 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 About Physical Inventory.

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 help topic for the Cycle Type field (which appears on the Warehouses form).

For more information about the overall cycle-counting process, see About Cycle Counting.

Related Topics

Doing a Cycle Count

Creating an Item/Warehouse Record

About Cycle Counting

About Multi-Site Transfer Order Lot Tracking

About Multi-Site Transfer Order Receiving

About Multi-Site Transfer Order Serial Number Tracking

About Transfer Order Costing

Determining the Best Site/Warehouse to Fulfill a Customer Order

Cycle Count Generation

Data Collection Parameters

Inventory Parameters

Item/Warehouse

Setting Up Inter-Site Parameter Records

Warehouse To Warehouse Bulk Transfer

Warehouses

About Intra-Site Transfers

Consignment Inventory Setup