Warehouse Management System: Activity Exception and Slotting Optimization

Warehouse Management Systems Slotting
Why do you see inventory items in a store on the end-caps or strategic locations on shelves? Why does it cost suppliers more discount allowances to those stores for their items to be located on an end-cap instead of the middle of the shopping aisle? They are visible, quickly picked up, and are more likely the buyer will purchase them. So give your customers what they want faster and more efficiently.

Reasons to adopt Slotting for your warehouse
Ease of use, ease of picking, ease of packing, ease of sorting, ease of labeling, and time-savings are cost-saving, ROI building, and TCO reducers. i.e., justification for rearranging your inventory regularly based on what is moving and what is not. A high percentage can reduce Cost-per-package if you accept the “SYSTEM’s” control.
Inventory Slotting Scenario
In most warehouses or distribution centers, warehouse management personnel spend significant amounts of time each day traveling back and forth across the floor, unloading, stocking, and picking. Reducing this travel time can increase pick productivity, faster shipping times, and significant labor cost savings for the company.
Inventory slotting is a crucial strategy for reducing travel time on the warehouse floor. Slotting, within warehouse management processes, analyzes inventory movements and purposefully reassigns the bin-position of inventory for greater movement efficiencies. Most ERP systems allow for a discovery report (Inventory Exception) revealing what moves and does not. Most ERPs do not take it to the next level of suggesting “rearrangements,” enabling faster shipment and picking times, which lower the cost-per-box.
Using inventory slotting processes enables warehouse managers to view inventory movement and sales history to see what’s hot and what’s not in warehouses, bins, lots, and serial numbers. Inventory slotting is based on various criteria, such as placing inventory in the best location to enhance customer delivery performance and reduce costs.
Inventory Slotting mechanisms should be developed against warehouse managers, and employees need to know more about inventory to get the tempo of product movements for better forecasting, planning, and improved customer service.
Inventory Slotting helps identify what’s happening in the warehouse with the suggested inventory assignment so warehouse workers travel the least possible distance to pick orders.
What is the bottom-line goal? - Paying for warehouse crews to pick more orders in less time.
How It Works
The first step when slotting a warehouse or distribution center is to look at the physical space and determine what area should hold the hottest inventory – those items that are the fast movers. Bins and shelves in this area could be identified and labeled as the “Hot-Zone.”
The next step is to determine which items and quantities (capacity or min/max) are held in the new Red Zone (BIN) based on the size of the zone and dimensions of the item. For example, the materials manager may determine that the Hot-Zone can hold the top 50-100 fastest moving parts. By using product movement analysis, materials managers identify items in the Hot-Zone. A study using historical sales data presents suggestions for bin/warehouse reassignments. The same steps are repeated to identify zones outside the red zone, including the items they should contain.
Ranking your items by movement volumes between fast and slow movers allows optimization based on correct current and historical data. These product-specific rating opportunities enable managing stock locations for optimal picking and delivery of orders, allowing cost savings while improving customer delivery demands.
The analysis results should allow for the development of slotting movement tasks to take advantage of these re-positioning benefits. For example, Suggest warehouse transfers from the current bin/location to the target bin/location for all stock codes within the selection criterion range.
Inventory Warehouse Allocation is based on Activity Exception (Slotting), and while complicated, executing slotting is a simple series of relocation movements. Which results in productivity increases, allowing faster shipping times and enhanced customer service, positively impacting your bottom line?
Warehouse Slotting is Critical in Improving Efficiency and Reducing Costs. 
We recommend WMS, which contains a robust warehouse slotting software tool that optimizes product placement in warehouses and distribution centers to improve operational productivity, safety, and space utilization significantly.