Sorting Inventory

About this task

Warehouses may pick for multiple shipping cartons or shipments in one trip and sort them as they pick. Each cart location or a container placed at a cart location may be used to sort these picked inventory for the respective shipping references.

The containers used for sorting in a cart may be:

To sort the picked inventory into a tote, case, or equipment:

Procedure

  1. If you are sorting for a shipping container and not using the actual shipping box for sorting, you may use a tote that is not yet inducted for any reference.
    1. Scan the identifier of the tote.
    2. Scan the system suggested cart location.

      This implicitly associates the tote with the shipping container that is already associated with the cart location.

      Note: The cart locations are associated with shipping containers either as a part of batching performed on IBM® Sterling Warehouse Management System or manual cart build process.
  2. If you are sorting into totes that are pre-inducted for a shipping reference or into cart locations directly, scan the relevant tote, task reference number, or cart location.
    • If the SKU is tag-tracked, the Tag Entry screen displays where you can capture the tag number. For more information about capturing the tag number, see Picking Inventory Into a Cart: Capturing the Tag Number.
    • If the SKU is time-sensitive, the Expiration Date Entry screen displays where you can capture the expiration date. For more information about capturing the expiration date, see Picking Inventory Into a Cart: Capturing the Expiration Date.
    • If the SKU is serial-tracked or requires outbound serial tracking, the Serial Number Entry screen displays where you can capture the serial number. For more information about capturing the serial number, see Capturing Serial Numbers.
      Note: If the barcode scanned has inventory information, such as, tag number, serial number, expiration date, or quantity from the barcode translation, the system does not prompt you to capture the inventory information again while picking. For example, if a tag-tracked item with lot number "L" has tag information from the barcode translation indicating that the item belongs to lot "L", the Tag Entry screen does not display.
  3. If the system detects that the location is empty after picking, a confirmation dialog box displays. Choose YES if the location is empty after picking. Choose NO if the location is not empty after picking.
    Note: The Confirmation window displays only when the zone from where the inventory is picked is configured to "Confirm Location Empty After Pick."
    Note: If you click NO in the Confirmation dialog box, an event triggers that creates a count request.
    Table 1. Sort Fields
    Fields
    Locn The location identifier of the cart displays.
    Slot # The slot number of the location in the cart displays.
    Task Ref #/Cart Location Enter the identifier of the tote, container SCM, shipment number, or cart location.
    Display Item ID If you implement the YCMGetDisplayItemAttributesUE user exit, the user-defined item identifier displays. Otherwise, the identifier of the item displays.

    For more information about the user exit, see the Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Foundation: Javadocs.

    UOM The unit of measure of the item displays.
    Qty The quantity to pick displays.