Tuesday, 25 June 2019

New KwaMoja warehousing functionality

KwaMoja now has the ability to store stock in containers within a warehouse, down to any level you choose to define. So for instance an item can be stored in a particular bin, in a particular bay, on a particular aisle, in a particular warehouse. However it doesn't have to be in this form, it could be a tank, in a block of tanks containing liquids in a warehouse, or a box in a refrigerated container, or any other method of storing stock items. It can also be one warehouse with a mixture of any of the above systems used to define it. Any area where stock can be stored, or which can have areas within it where stock can be stored is termed a "Container". If you do not define a warehouse layout for a location then KwaMoja will continue to carry on behaving as before.

When you enter the locations management screen from the setup menu you see a list of the currently setup locations with an option for "Define Layout".


Clicking on this option takes you to the warehouse layout screen:



All containers must have an ID which can be up to 10 characters in length, and can contain numbers and letters.
The description can contain up to 50 alpha numeric characters, and should accurately describe this container.
The only container to not have a parent is the container for the warehouse itself. All other containers must have a parent.
The next four flags determine how this container can be used."Allow Putaway" defines whether new stock can be placed directly to this container, "Allow Picking" defines whether this area can be used to fulfil picking requests, "Allow Replenishment" defines whether the stock level in the container should be replenished when falling low, and "Quarantine Area" defines whether the container holds quarantined stock, awaiting QA approval. These flags are only partially implemented.
The next two sections allow you to define the position and size of the sub-container, within it's parent container.

If there are sub-containers defined then clicking the parent container in the list will reveal them:
If a warehouse is defined with sub-containers, then when stock transactions occur for that location then an option appears to choose which container to use - assuming that the container has the correct flag set for that type of transaction:
If no sub-containers are defined, then KwaMoja continues to act as it always has done.