General Overview
Warehouse Layout
Inbound/Outbound Modules
General Product Flow
General Order Flow
Products
Perpetual Inventory
Units of Measure (UOMs)
Locations
Inventory Moves
Inventory Adjustments
Physical Inventory
Cycle Counting
Forecasting
COREflex™ is a fully featured family of Inventory Control and Warehouse Management software used by distribution, commercial warehousing and manufacturing companies. It's strength lies in its ability to efficiently guide the physical processing of inventory and orders on the plant or distribution floor using methodologies previously only available to larger companies while automatically interfacing to many third party Order Entry and Accounting Systems.
The complete lifecycle of a product in a COREflex™ maintained warehouse can be audited in detail from the time it is received, through all movements and processing stages, until it is shipped.
Customer Orders and Bill of Material processes are tracked through standard processing stages for detailed management reporting. User defined custom processing stages can be defined for unique processing and tracking needs.
Locations in a warehouse are grouped into Location Types based on the operational function being satisfied by the location. A typical warehouse layout may consist of Location Types such as: Receiving, Quarantine, Reserve, Picking, Work In Process and Finished Goods. Each Location Type typically contains multiple locations. Products, customer orders and bill of material work orders flow in and out of Location Types during their life cycle.
COREflex™ is organized into Inbound and Outbound modules. Inbound modules process items coming into the warehouse (purchase orders, receiving, put away, replenishment, physical inventory control, finished goods and inventory movements). Outbound modules process items going out of the warehouse (customer orders, bill of material work orders, work in process, picking, packing and shipping).
Products are received into a staging location in the Receiving Area. They are then moved from the Receiving Area into locations in the Reserve Stock Area. Next, Picking Area locations that have been depleted are replenished by moving inventory from Reserve Stock locations into Picking Locations. As orders and work orders are processed through Picking, Verification Packing and Shipping, product inventory is reduced.
Purchase Orders and Pending Invoices are imported from the host accounting or order entry system. Inventory items are allocated to the orders through a selection process. The inventory location containing the items to be picked is identified and selected in logical picking order. Pick sheets are printed for each order and the order items are picked, packed and shipped.
Within a warehouse, a unique product number identifies each product. This product number is typically referred to as an SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) and can also be referred to as an Item Number or Item Id.
Perpetual inventory is the term used to describe the continuous real-time tracking of quantities of a product. Perpetual quantities must take into account any activity that increases or decreases inventory from a specific location / bin. This includes receiving, put-away, replenishment, order picking, bill of material picking, inventory movements and inventory adjustments. Individual quantities must be maintained for every bin that contains the product.
As product is moved from one bin to another, or from a bin to customer order or bill of material, quantities must be balanced and Units of Measure (see below) must be taken into account. The sum of the quantities of all the bins containing the product is known as the Warehouse, Facility or Logistic Center Total.
The way a product is physically packaged can vary. A product may be purchased in a Pallet, stored in inventory as Cases and sold by the each. These physically different packages of the same product are known as Units of Measure (UOMs). A product sold as an each that has 12 items in a case and 12 cases on a pallet will have the following UOM configuration: an Each contains a quantity of 1, a Case contains a quantity of 12 and a Pallet contains a quantity of 144. A product has the same SKU number for all Units of Measure.
Locations (also known as bins) allow products to be organized within Location Types within a warehouse and have static location names such as Area A - Rack 2 - Shelf A - Bin 3. They may contain one specific product or multiple products. If a location contains multiple products, it is known as SKU Mixing.
As product is assigned to a Picking bin, an ROP (Re-Order Point) quantity is set for the product. This number is used to automatically identify when a bin needs to be replenished.
All inventory moves are "two sided" performed by removing a quantity of a product from one inventory location (source location) and moving it to another inventory location (destination location). COREflex™ automatically verifies that the quantities balance to maintain inventory accuracy.
Inventory moves are used for putting away inventory after it has been received and for replenishing picking locations after order picking or bill of material work orders have depleted them.
All inventory adjustments are "one sided" performed by removing or adding a quantity of product to or from a specific location. COREflex™ automatically tracks and records inventory adjustments to maintain inventory accuracy and provide tracking reports. Inventory adjustments are used for receiving products, and adjusting quantities for reasons such as damaged goods, write offs, samples and physical inventory counts.
Physical inventory is the process of physically counting products to determine an accurate total for accounting and operations needs. It is typically performed once or twice a year during which time all order processing is stopped in order to get a "snap shot" of the totals. As products in a location are counted, Count Sheets are written-up. These sheets are then used to compare the counted quantities to the system perpetual inventory quantities. Variance reports are used to assist in the comparison of differences between the perpetual quantities and the counted quantities.
Cycle Counting is the process of physically counting a limited number of products on a rolling cycle (day, week or month) until all products have been counted. It minimizes the labor required to perform complete inventories and provides for a more accurate inventory throughout the year. Cycle Counting allows for normal operations to continue while inventory is being counted and therefore eliminates shutdowns for complete Physical Inventories.
COREflex™ utilizes history records, archived transaction data and customer projected purchase plans to arrive at a forecast stock level. A comparison of actual customer orders to purchasing plans enables immediate stock adjustments. Historical comparisons of just-prior activity to near-future application are used for increased accuracy rating. The stock advisory reporting monitors inventory levels against forecast algorithms. A safety stock level is forecasted by applying the accuracy measurement.