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Warehouse inbound processes can be some of the most time consuming processes in a warehouse. Directed put away is intended to optimize these processes, making them more efficient and productive. 


When receiving stock, many products must be put away to specific bins based on their dimensions or other factors, e.g. dairy products in a refrigerated bin. Some products should be kept in a single bin only, or can be stored in multiple bins. Your organisation may prefer to fill empty bins first, or fill each bin before moving on to the next. Directed Put Away allows you to configure put away rules for your locations and bins, then use these rules to suggest put away locations for received stock.


Prerequisites:


Table of Content:


Enable directed put away

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Directed put away is enabled/disabled at the location level. Go to Settings → Reference Books → Locations and select a location. Use the checkbox to to enable or disable Directed Put Away.


Choose bin suggestion priority

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Enabling directed put away will then activate a drop down menu where you can set the priority for bin suggestions.

Available options are to fill the bins from the emptiest first, the fullest first, or in alphabetically ascending/descending order.


When using directed put away, DEAR will suggest the first bin according to this suggestion priority, which meets the conditions of any other put away rules you have set up. 


Configure directed put away rules

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Use the Bins tab of a location, then select Directed Put Away to configure rules for put away. Directed put away rules can be applied when stock is received to this location. Each rule can have multiple parameters like total bin capacity, product dimensions, product weight, and more. An item must meet every parameter of the rule to be sent to this bin.

Click + to add a new rule. 



First, give a name to your new rule and select which bin or bins it will apply to. Rules can apply to one or more bin, and multiple rules can apply to the same bin. Directed put away cannot be applied to Staging or Deprecated bins. 


Bin storage capacity

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The first rule relates to bin storage capacity. You can set both a minimum and maximum threshold, and if the maximum is left blank, the bin will have infinite capacity in DEAR. 


Capacity is based on number of items and does not take into account the volume of the bin compared to the dimensions of the products. Each unit of product occupies one unit of capacity, no matter its size. Bin available capacity is the total capacity minus the On Hand quantity. 


In our example below, our bin with 1000 capacity has 752 capacity remaining. This could be 752 single screws or 752 kg of flour, or any combination of other units as long as the total comes to 752. We recommend keeping this in mind when setting bin capacity and using it in combination with other parameters explained in this article. 


Example (Total Bin Capacity 1000):

Product
Unit of MeasureQuantity On Hand
Milk Semi-skimmed cartonL
18
M6 Screws 30mmitem200
Plain flour kg30
Total:
248
Remaining capacity:
752



Batch splitting settings

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Next, you can choose to allow batch splitting. This allows products within the same batch to be stored within different bins. This option only applies to products with the costing methods FIFO batch, FEFO batch, and Special Batch, and does not apply to FIFO or serial numbered products. 


When enabled, received stock will be split in line with the bin suggestion priority set above. So if Loaded first is selected the suggestion will be first to fill the most full bin before splitting the batch and moving to the next fullest. 


If disabled, received stock will be put away to the highest-priority bin where the entire batch will fit. If no bins are available, the stock will not be put away to a bin and will just have the l


Set min/max product dimensions and weight

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Next, you can choose to set minimum and maximum dimensions and min/max weight for products. The direct put away rule will not apply to products outside of these limits. This parameter is useful in combination with the bin capacity to make sure you do not have wildly different sizes of item in the same bin giving capacity data which does not reflect the physical space. 


Units of measure are taken from your organisation's settings (Settings → General Settings → Products & Measurement Settings). If you have not configured these settings, no measurement unit will be displayed and you will be prompted to do so. 


[what happens if a product does not have dimensions? not sent to this bin?] Product dimensions are set from the inventory module on the product detail screen, Inventory →Products → [select product] and selecting the Dimensions section. Please see Product and service management - Add suppliers to a product for more information.


Filter by products

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Put away rules can apply to all products, selected products only, or one or more individual products. Product Families, Tags, Categories and Brands can be selected from the dropdown menu fields, or individual products can be selected from your inventory. 


The supply rule is assigned to products which match the selected values. The relationships inside the group for selection is OR. The relations among the groups is AND.


[example]


When a product could match several put away rules, the rule will be applied in this order or priority: Family, Tag, Category, Brand. Rules that apply to specific product groups will be prioritised over rules that apply to all products.


Use directed put away during a purchase

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Directed Put Away rules can be applied when stock is received to a location where Directed Put Away has been enabled.


Process a purchase as usual until you get to the Stock Received tab. Clicking Apply Directed Put Away will apply bin suggestions to the receiving location. 







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