“Locations” for products in OMINS

Product Location (in warehouse)  in OMINS

 

Location feature in OMINS can be used to help locate items in a warehouse.  This feature assigns a location to every product.

Basic concept:

The basic concept of this feature is that a warehouse can be divided and labelled into different locations (as per your own preferences) and these locations can be added in OMINS (in the form of location codes) and then these location codes can be assigned to products placed on these particular locations in warehouse.

 

Benefits:

  • The combination of warehouse feature and location feature in OMINS, has basically turned OMINS into a warehouse management software, as well as e-commerce management software.
  • By adding location to your products in OMINS, you can easily locate where the product is placed, without having to look around in warehouse for the product.
  • Locations can also be used to make packing process of product more efficient, as use of the location system will allow you to print invoices (packing slips/labels) in the order products are laid out in the warehouse, enabling the packing person to do so faster and more efficiently,
  • Also as locations can be displayed on invoices and packing slips this means packing accuracy can be greatly increased and new or temporary packing staff can operate far faster and with far fewer mistakes.

 

Location system in warehouse: (labeling the specific names to specific areas)

First you have to consider a location system of your warehouse.  It needs to be able to be sorted alphabetically in order of location, if we want to work it properly.  We recommend putting stickers or small signs around your warehouse to make the locations obvious”

Here is an example:  (see picture below)

location help-warehouse locations
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It is important the most general location (the Isle in this case is the first letter) and the most specific location (the shelf in this case) is the last letter in the code.

This has corresponding location codes such as:

A|2|c = Isle A, area 2, shelf c

A|4|B = Isle A, area 4, shelf b

B|1|E  = Isle B, area 1, shelf c

B|2|b = Isle B, area 2, shelf b

 

As you can see when these codes are sorted alphabetically, the locations will be in the order they are in the warehouse.  A picker can start walking down isle A , then Isle B, etc, picking up items according to a printed sheet of the “items to pack” report, or with a pile of invoices/packing slips printed in the order in which they are located in the warehouse.  If everything is done according to a procedure, the packing person will not have to run zig-zag all over the warehouse, finding out and picking the items.  Whether you want to use printed invoices/packing labels  or printed “items to pack” report or both of them, is really up to you, as in some situations first one is more helpful and in other situations latter is more helpful.  It depends upon client preference, how many multi-location items are there in your orders, and warehouse person working routine.

 

Adding locations (location codes) in OMINS:

You can go to products -> locations and set up each location by clicking “new”.  Locations must belong to a warehouse.  (see pictures below)

location_help-01
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If you only have one warehouse use “default warehouse”, otherwise see our help on warehouses here

 

Adding products to a location:

  • Products — > locations.
  • Click ID to open any previously saved locations.
  • Click “+” sign.
  • Add product part number in the bar and click save.

You can add as many products to this location, as you want.  (see below)

location_help-04
(click image to enlarge)


Bringing up all products on a specific location:

You can all products which are related to a specific location (means the displayed products have this location assigned to them)

Go to products — > locations.

Select any location.

Click “show related” bar and select products.  (see below)

location_help-05
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This will bring up all the products on this location.

 

Assigning location to a product:

Go to “product items view”

Open the product.

On the product general tab, from the “warehouse / stock locations” section,

Click “+” sign and add location code in the bar (partial entry will bring up matching results)

Do not forget to correctly assign a “main location” to this product.

Click save

location_help-06
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Products with more than one locations:

A product can also have more than one locations, however it will always have one main location.

Lets say there product HS1000 is at location A|1|a and this is the main location for picking; however you also have another location which is a bulk storage area called STORAGE A1.  (see below)

location_help-prod_main_storage_area
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Both these locations are loaded against HS1000 however the main location is set to A|1|a.  When the picker finds that stock of HS1000 has run out at A|1|a, they can either check in OMINS or check the other locations in the “items to pack” report (can be printed) to see that HS1000 is also at Storage A1 and the picker can then go to area STORAGE A1, fetch a master box of HS1000’s and replenish the main area A|1|a.  Provided locations are labeled in the warehouse sensibly and correctly, and the data is coded and stored in OMINS correctly, a picker does not need an intimate knowledge of the warehouse to pick products accurately and efficenclty; that is one of the reasons we say OMINS is now a warehouse management software as well.

 

Showing list of locations for a group of products:

Likewise you can bring up a list of locations, a group of products are at, using the show related function in products items view:   (see below)

 

location_help-06a
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Searching and navigating locations:

In products item view there is now a new column for location (disabled by default it needs to be enabled) you see how to enable fields here

In products item view there are two new searches one for “main location” and one for “any locations”.  Main location brings up items that use the typed location as the “main location” and “any location” brings up the every product where this location is specified as one of the locations.  (see below)

location_help-10
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When searching starts with is respected so if you type “A|2” in the search it will bring up all items in “A|2|c”, “A|2|b”.. and so on. likewise if you search for “A” it will bring up all items in locations in the A isle.

location_help-10a
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Printing “the items to pack” report:

 Under reports -> items to pack is a nice report.  (see below)

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This actually will tell you based on your “pick criteria”.

You can either print this page directly or you can export to CSV and load in excel and print this page (make sure to set the columns of excel to autofit their width before printing)

Following is a quick review on how to set excel columns to “auto fit”

The formatting for each column and row may be customized to suit your needs. For example, by default columns don’t automatically accommodate to fit the information they contain. However, using the AutoFit setting, you can set one or more columns to automatically expand and contract as needed.

  • Open Microsoft Excel using the “Start” menu or a shortcut. Open the document with which you want to work.
  • Click the column you want to modify. To select more than one column, press and hold the “Ctrl” key while clicking on each column.
  • Click the “Format” drop-down menu in the “Cells” group of the “Home” tab. Select the “AutoFit Column Width” option in the “Cell Size” section.

 

Printing invoices in order of location:

Once setup you can print your invoices/packing slips/lables in the order of the “main location”.  It will simply display the first, if you have more than one “main location” items in your order.

First simply enable “main location” field on the invoices search

location_help-09

 

read a detailed guide on this  here 

The main location of an invoice is simply is the first product on the invoice that has a main location, if there is more than one product with a main location it will simply display the first, if you have a lot of main location products the “items to pack” report may be also useful to help picking.

Then once you have applied your “to print and dispatch today” (help here) or “ready filter” (help here), you can then sort the list by main location by clicking on the “main location” column, your orders will then print in that order.

This means your orders will print in the order of the main location,

 

Printed packing slips and labels have location codes with products:

Most default OMINS reports will display location codes alongside the product to pack.

Location codes can, however, be added to some fully customized reports by adding location field tag at appropriate place i.e.  [m_sub1.location]

location_help-09a
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For any further help in this regard,  feel free to contact   support@snipesoft.net.nz

 

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