Re: Warehouse - Bin/bin list/bin lists

["Chris Travers" <..hidden..>]

On 10/18/07, Pongracz Istvan <..hidden..> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to ask that, what is the 'bin' and how it is related to
> warehouses.

A bin is a storage designation telling you where a part is stored.
All warehouses are expected to use the same bin system.  It is just a
text field.

>
> My problem is, I have no idea to represent a real warehouse into the
> existing warehouse/bin structure easily.

Ok, you have 3 locations, in Budda, in Pest, and in some other city.
(I hope my Hungarian geography isn't too far off...)  Each location
would be a warehouse.

In each warehouse, you would have a bunch of locations for storing
parts.  These are bins.

>
> For example, I have 10 big warehouses in our country in 8 different
> cities.
> Each warehouses has several buildings and outside places.
> Most of them has several floors, where we use lot of four-to-eight level
> high racks.
> Lot of racks has smaller bins.
>
> So, this structure is a typical tree object.
> In the existing system I can create warehouses and for a part, I can
> assign a 'bin' number.
> As I can see, I only can assign only one bin number for a part.

Right.  We should revisit this in 1.4 :-)  Not only should you file a
feature request (so we don;t forget) but also tell me more about your
ideas about how thi needs to work on this list.
>
> If I get 10 trucks of a part into 3 warehouses, how can I record their
> location in LS, to report their exact location at any time?

So, you think that bin should be recorded on receiving a part, maybe
with a default to the last one for that part in that warehouse (and on
warehouse transfers)?

>
> And how can I manage that situation, when I want to move a part from one
> place to other?
>
> I have an idea, using a good code-table to generate a
> multi-segment-value bin number, but I have no idea, how to separate all
> items in these trucks?

One thing you may want to look at is a referential solution instead.
Something like:
create table warehouse_division(
     warehouse_id int references warehouse(id) not null;
     id serial not null unique,
     label text not null,
     parent int references warehouse_division(id),
     PRIMARY KEY (warehouse_id, label)
);

create table bin (
     division_id int references warehouse(id) not null,
     label text not null,
     primary key (division_id, label)
);

>From here you can use connectby() (in the tablefunc add-on required in
1.3) to build your tree.
>
> So, the long and short of it, how to manage storing lot of goods in lot
> of places, using LS?

Yu have another problem you have to think through here too.

The above solution might provide a structure which could be used
(along with a re-engineered invoice and inventory system) to hold that
information.

However, you also need to determine what processes you need to use to
track it.  Basically, as I see it:

On every purchase, sale, shipment (shipped or received), or transfer
you would need to note bins in and out.  For a retail environment, you
would probably need to assign a default bin for sales to each part.
In short, one needs to know what the processes are, how one intends to
handle them, and so forth.  (This is the human component of the
system).

> Of course, I need report possibility for any time, without paperwar :)

Reporting is the easy part, once you have appropriate data stored and
processes in place to enter it.

Hope this helps,
Chris Travers