Every day, our world is increasingly taking place online. Whether it is the way we communicate, where we get our information from or where we do our shopping. It does not matter if these are groceries, electronics or furniture; you can get everything on the internet. That this trend has a direct effect on your business as a logistics service provider, is clear. The rise of e-commerce led a large part of the logistics service providers to an extension of their services with e-fulfilment. Therefore, we expanded 3PL Dynamics with many new functionalities that help you optimize your e-fulfilment processes. In an extensive blog series, I will take you through this process. Step by step. Just as in the warehouse, we will begin with the goods-in process. You now have the option to calculate your location capacity.

A new work field, new customers

The trend towards e-commerce brings along many changes, including your customers’ profile. Where many of your current customers focus on one specific product group, a web shop can offer all kinds of goods. These goods can be big – such as kitchen appliances – but also very small. Think in that case about office supplies, toothbrushes, pens or magnets. Your customers, the owners of the web shop, expect that they do not have to pay a lot for storing these kinds of articles. They hardly take any space. And thus they are very strict about the storage fee.

Calculate your location capacity for each location

This is why we developed a new functionality: location capacity calculation. On the customer article card, you will now find an extra button named “Location sort capacity”. This is a new table and it is used by the system to check measurements of the location type and your articles, to then calculate the maximum number of goods that can be stored on that location. Naturally, your core data needs to be perfect to let this succeed.

At the moment that you execute the initialization, you will see a request page. Here, you can activate the calculation based on filters. Next, you will have to decide what will happen if an error occurs. This can come forward if your measurements are incorrect or not registered. By defining this, you will make your process waterproof.

Automatically calculate your location capacity

Finally, an article status function is added for the above. Namely code unit 1154860 function 6. This will help you automate the process of the calculation. U will store the goods in an already calculated location. Based on the measurements of the product and the location, the system is able to calculate of the article fits or not.

From calculating location capacity to putaway strategies

With the aforementioned, you will gain more insight in your location capacity. It does not have to end there. Because after gaining insight, you can always apply new knowledge. That is why we added a new restriction. This will check the number of stocked goods and the number of goods on your location. Next, the system will decide whether the new batch will fit or not. You automatically activate this restriction in your warehouse strategies and thus 3PL Dynamics will appoint you the best possible storage location.

Gradually towards a perfect e-fulfilment procedure

As said in the introduction, this is the first blog in a complete e-fulfilment series. With this series, we will go towards a perfect e-fulfilment process with you. Keep an eye out for our blogs and social media and you will become the e-fulfilment party to go to.