Warehouse Management

Before

A warehouse that lives on hand counts and spreadsheets looks correct until the next count. Between counts, receipts sit in one book and line issues in another. The missing part shows up mid-shift, with the machine stopped, when the supervisor calls purchasing. Purchasing learns that day what is not there.

With several warehouses, the transfer between them is often not posted at all. Goods that left the central store for the shop floor are in both places, or in neither. If batch and serial live on paper, a return cannot say which shipment the part came from. The balance the accountant sees is not the balance the storekeeper sees on the shelf.

What was built

The item card keeps stock down to bin, batch, and serial. Receipts, issues, transfers, and counts post to that card. The reorder point is filled from real consumption, not from the buyer's guess. When stock crosses it, a shortage report is raised for purchasing before the line stops.

Roles stay separate. The storekeeper posts the quantity, the accountant sees the voucher, and the manager reads the balance and the shortage. Nobody corrects stock in a personal spreadsheet. Across warehouses, a transfer has a source and a destination, so goods do not float.

A working day

In the morning a bearing shipment arrives. The storekeeper posts the receipt on BRG-4410, writes the batch, and picks bin A-12-04. At noon the line asks for an issue. The issue draws from that batch. If stock falls under the reorder point, purchasing sees the row on the shortage report that afternoon and raises the order from the card, not from the supervisor's call.

The weekend count brings forward only the rows that differ. The accountant sees the adjustment and its reason. The manager does not have to decide which of two spreadsheets is telling the truth.

The result

The shortage shows before the line stops. Purchasing works from the report, and the line supervisor is no longer the messenger. The hand count leaves the daily flow and stays as a periodic check.

The balance becomes trustworthy because three people do not produce three numbers. The bin, the voucher, and the report point at one item card.