Warehousing

Warehouses comprise the back bone of any supply chain operations. These ubiquitous facilities can be tasked with manufacturing line replenishment or finished goods distribution. Given economic pressure to minimize inventories, warehouses constantly work for efficiency and accuracy improvements to optimize operations. Warehouse automated data capture technologies carry out a variety of inventory accountability and communications tasks centred on the receipt and disposition of goods. Receiving starts the process as new material arrives at a facility. In some cases, goods will literally be transferred from incoming to outgoing trucks, a function called cross docking. Sorting and put away operations require communication and direction from the host system to ensure the goods are accurately stored for later retrieval. Picking and staging activities kick off the shipping process. Finally stock counts for year-end inventory and cycle counts to verify inventory accuracy must be completed in the shortest possible time.