Hello,

I have a question regarding bin location within a warehouse.

We have one warehouse with multiple rows of shelves, within each row there are many bin locations.

So i set up a warehouse and a stock location, then child locations for each row, then child locations for each bin number. Ok that is fine, however what happens if I take in a delivery of stock, say 200 items I want to book them into stock but can only put 100 in one bin location and the other 100 in another bin location? Do I need to simply book 100 in then the other 100?

Also I have noticed when an order needs to picked by the warehouse, it is not 100% clear what bin location the product is in? So as per my senario above, I have 200 nokia chargers 100 in bin location A and 100 in bin location B someone place an order for 50 nokia chargers, when the warehouse go to pick and dispatch the order the location shows only as stock (the top level for the warehouse). How can the warehouse see the actual bin location that they will need to go to to pick the order.

Also what happens if someone orders 150? We would need to show both bin locations to the picker and 100 would need to be allocated off bin location A and 50 from B?

Any help would be greatly appreciated?

Thanks

have a look at module stock_multilocation_picking - this does stock by bin location and works well for a single warehouse company (has some issues with multiple warehouse companies).

OK, thanks for the advice.

I checked that module out, downloaded it, but when I went to install it I had the following error: "Can not create the module file: C:\Program Files\OpenERP 6.0\Server\addons\stock_multilocation_picking/wizard.zip !"

I am running version 6 of OpenERP but this module say 5, I guess it's a version issue?

I used on the latest iteration of v6 so that is not the issue. If you are using the GTK client the unzip process does not seem to work - it does on the web client.

What I do is unzip & extract the folder (plus sub-folders) to the add-ons directory, then run update module list - seems to work consistently.

Yes that method seems a much better way of installing modules, thank you.

However I am still struggling to perform the logic I need to implement as explained in my first post.

If yourself or anyone else is able to assist me in this I will pay a handsome reward!!!

Ok for 1 chocolate fish

You have set up all your bin locations (or locations as they are called in OpenERP). Normally these would roll up to a view location, but make the top level location (usually "Stock") an internal location as well. In the warehouse set up record, this is the default location for "location stock".

You presumably have an inwards goods location as well. For this location you need to set up chaining rules as follows:
chained location type: fixed location
chained location: stock (or whatever you called it)
chaining type: manual operation

This means that to get from inwards goods to stock a move is required, and OpenERP will create a transfer which you can process. At receipt of stock you need to split the transfer move by bin location. This is a bit weak as you need to change the location (but there is no lookup for the locations you have set up for this product, just all locations) and if you need to split a single receipt into two lines you can add a record - again not the most functional area but it works.

For the picking side, each sales order line should show the correct location to pick from and split the line across bin locations if required. Also, because the top of your tree is stock and this is an internal location the available stock calculates correctly.

Hope this helps - I did quite a bit with multi-location because I thought my client was going to use, but they decided to start off with just a simple single stock value but keep a record of where stock is in the product record and then move to stock by location later. When they do move we will do some extra development to make more usable around that receipting process, plus issues with multiple warehouses.

Kevin, great explanation and hopefully this also helps the readers.

The use case that this module was developed for was tied to a single large warehouse - hence we never tested the multiwarehouse scenario.

In a large warehouse environment - to promote efficient picking - many companies designate primary picking locations of the most frequently selected products, with one or more multiple "overstock" locations. This keeps frequently picked goods close to the packing/boxing areas or "manufacturing locations" depending on how you structure your business.

This module keeps track of primary locations of products, as well as overstock locations.
e.g. Product XYZ
Primary location: 01-04-A (Aisle-Stop-Height or Bin)
Overstock Location 1: 05-28-C
Overstock Location 2: 07-22-B
etc
(this has actually been used with products having 20+ locations) and over 4000+ actual inventory locations.

We modified reports to improve the picking process and help the pickers with location information on the reports, and also added a module in openerp-usa to help warehouse managers designate who is assigned to pick goods and orders as efficiently as possible. (We eventually see this becoming a voice-driven picking system found in high-volume warehouse environments).

The module also allows warehouse managers the ability to designate replenishment levels for the primary product locations as well. In our use case - the client had several warehouse staff designated specifically to replenish the primary locations from overstock locations. That way the primary picking locations can be stocked at needed levels for efficient warehouse activities and pickers can get good quickly (+10-20% efficiency in picking orders).

For receiving - the other "gap" you mentioned - the process was to immediately drop the goods/palettes into an open bay - versus a specific unpacking activity into an existing location.

Any suggestion the community has to improve this module please let me know. We'd like to make OpenERP really very strong in the warehouse/picking functionality.

Based on your comments I see the following on the short list:
1) Improve multi-warehouse support
2) Improve filtering for product lookup of locations on receipt of goods.
3) Enable OpenERP to support VoicePicking - an Asterisk/Python combo we're working on.

For those not familiar VoicePicking Uses Voice Technology used in Warehouse Management?
Definition: Voice technology uses speech recognition and speech synthesis to allow workers to communicate with the Warehouse Management System (WMS). Warehouse staff use a wireless, wearable computer with a headset and microphone to receive instructions by voice, and verbally confirm their actions back to the system. The wearable computer/smartphone communicates with the Warehouse Management Software via a radio frequency (RF)/Wifi local area network (LAN).

Send your ideas - and we'll put them on the backlog list for the module.

Best Regards,

If you added functionality to cover those areas it would be an excellent module for large high volume warehouses - just what is required.

Thanks for the development.