Inventory and Bins

jversusj

hello all. i searched the forum for a little background information, but did not see much regarding my scenario.

We recently purchased a third party warehouse mgmt application to handle our inventory/distribution etc. We are running 3.7b codebase with 5.0 client on a SQL backend.

the situation:
our WMS controls inventory and interfaces via flatfile to our NAV. We are using warehouse shipments/receipts as the touchpoints for incoming/outgoing stock and using item journals to handle inventory adjustments, cycle counts, etc..

So, a CSR would create an order to ship from our WMS Location and release the order. Order controller would put that order on a warehouse shipment and release the shipment. A text file would be sent to the WMS which will read the file in and process the order. Upon shipment, it will return a text file to navision. a dataport reads the file in and builds package records in NAV custom table. a process will run to post shipment lines that have been packed (and the inventory should be decreased). a PO would work the same way, just adding stock to NAV in the end. Inventory adjustments similarly are interfaced from WMS to NAV, creating positive/negative adjustments as necessary.

my question:
In our WMS system, inventory is carried within a Warehouse, and stock within that warehouse can have different status (available, quality,Return). The status determines if the stock can be allocated to picks. In the original integration i did for this, i created Locations in NAV and did some translational work in the interface, using the reclass. journal to move stock in NAV to an appropriate location based on the status of the inventory in the WMS system.

so, if the stock was available, NAV would show that inventory in Location 1. If the stock was quality, it would be in NAV location 2. I am leaving-out a fair amount of customization to make this easily configurable in NAV - it was not hardcoded. this gave us visibility to what was available (could allocate) versus what was not, allowing sales to be able to say with some certainty if stock could ship when dealing with customers.

Now we realize that the multiple locations to approximate the multiple status is not an effective solution. It does not play well with the Req. Worksheet being the biggest stumbling block.

So, now we are considering the use of Bins instead of locations. We would therefore have 1 Location in NAV with 3 bins: available, quality, return. I require shipping and receiving from my location in NAV but i do not require Pick/putaway (that work is done in the WMS system). i cannot require the CSR to enter which Bins they want to sell out of, or a buyer which bin they want to buy into - this should be defaulted to Available. are there any pitfalls to using a location with bins in this manner? I cannot require any "warehouse" work in NAV beyond what i describe above, since all the real warehouse work is being done in the other system and avoidable double-work is a no-no.

does this fall in line with the use of Bins in NAV?

jversusj

follow-up:
i found an old manual on a shelf and i am reading about bins. do i have to setup zones to have bins, as this manual suggests? i want to keep this as simple as possible because NAV is not going to be used for warehouse mgmt, but i have to accurately reflect the status of the inventory.

bbrown

jversusj wrote:

follow-up:
i found an old manual on a shelf and i am reading about bins. do i have to setup zones to have bins, as this manual suggests? i want to keep this as simple as possible because NAV is not going to be used for warehouse mgmt, but i have to accurately reflect the status of the inventory.

You do not need Zones to use bins. In fact zones are only available with Advanced Warehouse Managment. We have several cleints that operate in a "bins only" enviroment. What you propose sounds reasonable. You may need some minor mods.

jversusj

thanks bbrown...

we do have advanced WMS from a prior add-on, but we've decided to move our distro/invt on to another software package...

i am fairly confident i could handle the minor mods you speak of...but i am obviously not well-versed with bins. any tips on places to check (where i may need to mod) to make this work?

my main goal is to keep this as simple as possible and still provide some visibility to what inventory is truly available (so dumping into 1 location without any other segmentation is not ideal). thanks!

edit:
that is to say, i'd like to keep the bins to a minimum as well. with our current e-ship solution we have a GENBIN for stock to sit and a SHIPBIN for when it is being shipped, plus RECBIN (receipts), DAMBIN (damages), etc.. i want to avoid that if possible. NAV should see it as either Available bin, Quality Bin, or Returns bin. All sales orders will be from available bin and purchase returns would ship stock in the returns bin. The quality bin should only be a holding 'area' while QC makes the determination of available or return to vendor. possible?

bbrown

Look for a function 'GetDefaultBin' on the various inventory transaction tables. "Purchase Line", "Sales Line", "Item Journal Line", etc. This set the default bin code on the line and calls a common WMS function. You could modify this to set the default bin according to your rules. It's a fairly simple functions and should be easy to modify for your needs.

That's your free tip for today.

jversusj

thanks - if it turns out too big for me, i'll pass it on to our partner.

Kowa

Keep in mind that bins, unlike locations, do not allow negative inventory, so if warehouse receipts are delayed for some reason you will not be able to ship the orders.