Trends in Warehouse Automation: Multi-Bin
Modern distribution operations can no longer settle for viewing inventory by warehouse. In busy warehouse facilities, knowing where your items are located is just as important as knowing inventory stock levels. Multi-Bin solutions help warehouse workers streamline the process of identifying where inventory is located within your facility. And with the ability to store a single inventory item in multiple locations, it also optimizes common warehouse processes like put away, replenishment, and picking.
What is Multi-Bin?
Multi-Bin functionality extends the warehousing capabilities of your existing ERP or WMS system to have the ability to designate, store, and distribute a single inventory item into multiple “bin” locations within a warehouse. Advanced multi-bin solutions allow organizations the flexibility to set up bins by product line, company, warehouse, or item code. They should also have the ability to easily and quickly transfer or replenish bins to keep order fulfillment operations optimized.
How the Multi-Bin System Works
Greater visibility leads to increases in efficiency. The key to using a multi-bin approach to inventory management is ensuring that your warehouse signage and labeling clearly identifies where inventory is located. Best practices for multi-bin labeling should include markers for Area, Row, Bay, Level, and Bin position so that warehouse workers can quickly and accurately locate inventory. Multi-bin labeling best practices include:
- Use the Area marker to designate unique areas within a warehouse or for multi-warehouse environments, identify which warehouse inventory is located in.
- Use Row markers to clearly identify if inventory is located on the left or right side of a warehouse aisle.
- Identify Bays by column dividers in warehouse racks that separate sections within a warehouse aisle.
- Use Level identifiers on your warehouse labels to divide each bay into separate compartments that are often designated by which shelf inventory is located on.
- Set up Bins which are the smallest inventory locations with a single inventory item so they can be easily identified by warehouse pickers.
How ScanForce’s Multi-Bin can Help Your Distribution Operations
Inventory visibility is the core to successful business processes, whether it’s raw materials or finished products. The ability to see your warehouse inventory in real-time is critical for your operations, and a multi-bin solution is the enhancement your business needs. ScanForce’s Multi-Bin offers:
- Faster order processing- increases the speed that warehouse workers can process orders by eliminating unnecessary movement through the warehouse to locate each product.
- Bin Locations and directed picking: know what to get and where to easily access it. Leverage the features within multi-bin where you can optimize the picking process.
- Inventory location diversity- If both the warehouse or shop floor need the same items, it enables your facility to evenly distribute inventory stock items so that your supply chain is not disrupted.
- Replenishment – Warehouse workers can see the inventory level of an item decline, so employees know that they need to replenish items or risk running out of that particular item.
- Minimize risk– warehouse fires, water damage, and theft are the most common risk to inventory. When your company holds inventory in one location, they risk destroying their entire inventory stock for an item.
- Leverage Allocations – facilitates separate assignments of inventory counts within Multi-Bin to maximize order picking. No longer do you have to pick items for one order at a time. You can specify how much of the same item is going to separate orders before moving on to the next inventory bin.
Make the Switch to Warehouse Automation with Multi-Bin
Inventory level records not only provide the data imperative to manage appropriate quantities in the warehouse but drive the ability to service customers in a timely manner. To fully realize the most efficient methods for inventory control and warehouse process automation, it is crucial to have an in-depth, real-time view of inventory that a multiple location management solution brings. It will no longer suffice to view items simply by warehouse. New technologies allow, and demand requires, items summarized by Warehouse Code to be combined with the detail of multiple locations within the warehouse. To keep up with the industry, your warehouse needs to be organized and labeled in a way that allows a multi-bin system to be part of your operations.
The Multi-Bin Management solution works seamlessly with the ScanForce Warehouse Management solution and is designed exclusively for Sage 100. It’s an easy-to-use and easy to install location management solution. Sage 100 users expect detailed information on where items are located in the warehouse for managing inventory efficiently and effectively. Use your Warehouse Management System to the fullest extent with ScanForce Multi-Bin Management solution.
Schedule a demo to see our multi-bin solution in action and discover the power of warehouse automation.
