Warehouse

Materials Management

Materials Management provides a great level of detail in stock management, planning, and forecasting for procuring, which spans across the entire range of materials used in production.

Effective stock management

Several default views are available, both quick and detailed views, which in a self-explanatory manner allow for efficient management of stock. These are intuitively designed to display the existing stock, reserved, expected, and to order materials. The data is displayed in pivot grids providing ease of use, ease of data analysis and updating, flexibility in data sorting by the user.

The views are available for all material types and provide information of the supplier, substrate weight and dimensions, desired/expected/reserved dates. In addition, they may include the stock per warehouse location, expected/reserved/required stock per material, stock of each material per warehouse location. Several data sets are available to be added as per the user’s preference.

Additional views can also be prepared by the user, applying filters according to user requirements to enable efficient and user-friendly managing of stock.

Stock requirements

Another important section within stock management is displaying stock requirements. Again, separate views are presented by default showing the requirements upon orders, job tickets, production requirements, cutting orders requirements for cutting sheets to smaller sheet size, as well as material forecasting.

The functionality of an automated converter that runs in the background of the system and displays the equivalent value depending on the selected field is extremely useful. It calculates and converts the quantities and units of measure depending on the required output needed every time, i.e. it will convert the number of sheets into kilograms of a substrate and then to the subsequent cost. What is more is that the stock management views will display the stock and the reserved quantity per substrate simultaneously in sheets, kilograms, square meters, or else as required.

Forecasting powered by Machine Learning

The integrated procurement workflow allows efficient purchasing, built with the aim to minimize stock in the warehouse while preventing out-of-stock situations. This is enabled by material forecasting that uses machine learning to forecast stock procurement. Forecasting takes the following parameters into account to calculate the required quantity for procurement: the average consumption over a selected period, the reserved materials, minimum order and existing stock, and the on-order quantity desired to be produced. Forecasting easily leads the user to make a purchase order requisition.

Trace back to the source of materials

Backward traceability is in increasing demand, especially when it comes to the food and pharma sectors. Tracing back to the source of the product is possible – meaning identifying each raw material that comprises the product. Within Overprint, when the warehouse is managed by LOT numbers, barcodes, and/or RFID tags, detailed traceability of the product is recorded. This allows for birth certificates to be issued and quality control of materials to be managed.

Logistics

Overprint MIS within the Warehouse module has simplified logistics operations of receiving, putting away, picking, and packing procedures, as well as inventory and warehousing. The system will correlate purchase orders to the transactions created in the warehouse, starting with the vendor’s packing list.

Analytical stock tracking  

Stock may be logged in bulk of quantities or registered by LOT numbers via barcodes. This information may be carried by the supplier, or it may be assigned by Overprint, which will make a printout of barcodes for the warehouse to attach to the materials received.

Stock is tracked through LOT numbers, barcodes, or RFID tags in as much detail as required (either in quantity per pallet, stack, or roll). An important aspect is the possibility to apply zero balance of ingoing and outgoing materials, which is possible through analytical tracking of stock.

Automation of logistics operations

Warehouse transactions and delivery documents, i.e. goods receipts, packing lists, delivery notes, are easily processed within the system. The users can log the quantities in the Control Center shop floor terminals either manually or using PDAs to collect the data via barcodes. There is a variety of mobile apps to facilitate all warehouse procedures, designed with a simple user interface for ease of use in warehouse facilities.

By utilizing RFID readers to collect data from RFID tags, it is now possible to perform one-click inventory using handheld terminals, a valuable feature especially when quantities may count thousands of pieces. This simplifies the receipt of goods or raw materials, allows for quick checking of the received products and immediate storage within the warehouse.

Picking ready materials out of production, will create barcodes for each pallet, box, or batch depending on the customer’s requirement and a delivery note for further shipping the order. Packaging details are also logged in the system, i.e. how many pieces are made into one batch, how many batches are included in a box, and how many boxes are packed into a pallet.