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[DealViking]

Jay and Ryanne,

Kinda long and you aren’t wanting this level I know but just some tidbits and maybe for others.

I spent a few years as a Supply Chain Engineer and warehousing was something we were always trying to make more efficient for Million square foot warehouses. It was all racking/shelving in most cases. It was set up on a series of numbers. Isle, Section, Row, Bin. So if you have multiple isles of racking/shelves (left could be isle 1 and across from it would be isle 2), and it was the 1st section of shelves (think Column between posts), an the row is like excel (bottom, middle, or top shelves in that section), then bin (left to right, 1 and 2). If you don’t have multiple isle then drop that number. Make it fit to what you do have.

Isle: The shelving unit on far left starts at 01. Shelves across from it are 02 and so on. Shelf directly behind 2 is 3 and across from 3 is 4.
Section: Shelving between shelf vertical post.
Row: Top, middle, bottom shelf in that shelf section
Bin: How many bins fit in that area. Maybe two totes fit between the shelf posts on that shelf row. Maybe you store as much as you can on one shelf row, loose and not in a tote, and the whole shelf row is a “bin” Then you can drop the bin number.

So, and item on the 1st Isle, 3rd shelf section, middle shelf of three, and two bins fit on a shelf and the item is in the bin on the right?
That’d be number 01030202. That’d tell you it was on the first isle, third section, on the middle shelf and the bin on the right.
03030101 Would be 3rd isle, 3rd shelf section, top shelf, bin on the left

Mine isn’t that complex. I have everything in totes, on shelves. I put a number on the outside of that tote and put everything I can in there as we list. I put that tote number in the custom sku. I go A1 through Z1. Then Start over with A2 through Z2 and so on. All totes get stacked top shelf down. left to right, then move to next shelf section. Top to bottom left to right in alphabetical order of tote and number.

For larger items I stick them randomly on open shelves. For shelves I number it Shelf1, Shelf2, Shelf3 and so on, so I can randomly stack what fits in that area.

Regardless, I know where things generally are and that’s a huge time saver than trying to remember.

Also from the supply chain world, random sorting is the strategy of just putting everything you can in that location, bin, tote. The key to that strategy is it is a space saver. It doesn’t matter what goes in there so long as you maximize space. There isn’t really a reason, outside of your own comfort, to have like items together in that case.

Again from the supply chain world. What happens if you label it wrong? Well this happens even with all corporate inventories. Think about cycle counting? Basically you could use what items are ending that day. Take a handful of them and go verify their location. For 10,000 item inventory maybe you check on 10 a day. That’d be 300 a month and 3,600 items a year you’d verify. Maybe 3 to 5 a day is more manageable. Some companies don’t cycle count. Instead they shut down for 2 or 3 days and take a physical inventory of 80% or so of their inventory. Then correct it in the system.

Just thoughts of how the big boys do it and how you can alter it to fit your needs. I keep it simple. Tote numbers, shelf numbers. Occasionally I miss label, I don’t cycle count or take inventory. If it take a bit longer to find or I have to go digging then fine. I save multitudes more time on all the other listings I have to locate when they sell by having even a simple system.

My wife will create a draft and has the tote beside her where she list. She creates the draft, types in custom sku, in the draft, of the tote letter and number, loads it in tote. Glass/Fragile are bubble wrapped in the tote. Top is put on when full, next tote is brought out and labeled, cycle continues.

Then I dolly them to the storage and put them on a shelf once we have a few totes done.

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