Knowledge Base

Inventory Bin Locations is an important productivity feature in SAP Business One that enables warehouse operators to index where items are stored. The indexing scheme is designed to be flexible so that you can configure and customize for your particular needs. The basic components for bin locations are sublevels. Each sublevel represents a layer of granularity for storage location. For example, to maximize efficiency, you may have a warehouse that is divided into zones where each zone is handled by a dedicated picker. The first sublevel, in this case, would be the zone. The next sublevel could be aisle followed by bay. Bay can further be divided into layer of shelves. Altogether, the sublevels form the hierarchy of:

• ZONE-AISLE-BAY-SHELF

Once you have set up the bin locations, you can then assign inventory items to sublevels locations and record the quantity stored. This bookkeeping exercise in inventory management helps you speed up order picking and reduce pick errors because the basic pick list generated by SAP now contains information on where items are stored in the warehouse for the pickers.

For the next level of efficiency, you can generate pick lists using the SolvingMaze online Batch Pick tool by drawing and uploading your warehouse layout with the sublevels information. Based on the layout, our advanced Batch Pick tool automatically and intelligently groups pick orders into batches to minimize the total foot distance so that the picking time is significantly reduced compared to unoptimized batches. Furthermore, our tool provides navigational map to direct the picker on where to go next and the shortest path to follow. Since picking time and foot distance are highly correlated, you know in advance how much time is required for pick tasks so you can plan labor resources more efficiently.

The online Batch Pick tool works with SAP B1 directly so no additional software installation is required. You are welcome to create a free 30 day trial account to try it out and see what it can do to accelerate your warehouse operation.