Introduction to Warehouse Locations

Warehouse locations are a critical component of managing inventory within a TVA warehouse. A location is the precise position in a facility where inventory is being stored and may be an area on the floor, a shelf, or even a bin holding a small amount of material. The location characteristics are irrelevant to TVA, and the key aspect of warehouse locations is that they are uniquely identified within the facility.

Within TVA, a warehouse location has a type which governs the various functional aspects of the location itself. Example types of warehouse locations include:

• Storage - Material may be stored and managed
• Received - New material may be received for processing
• Packing - Outbound material may be packed into packages
• Shipping - Packages may be processed for outbound shipping
• Pick Up - Customers may pick up packages directly

Beyond the core locations, there are other location types to be considered for particular work flows and processes.

A location is created in context of an Area, which is created within a Building. TVA uses Areas as a mechanism to segment a facility into more granular areas. Although a single Area may cover an entire warehouse, TVA recommends some area breakdown to support differing storage and material processing requirements. For example, one Area may support material processing for receiving, packing, and shipping areas, while another may be long-term storage. Other areas may be used to separate high-value or sensitive storage material from general use stock. The Area configuration ultimately does not impact functionality and is a tool to support granular requirements for a given space.

For a location created, it may have labels printed, if a supported printer is connected, and tags (such as RFID) may be assigned to the location to support automated scans and reviews.

Depending on the type of location, additional configurations may be possible. For example, a location may be permitted to store hazardous material, may have restrictions on what items may be stored, or the quantity of items capable of being held. These topics will be addressed in additional articles.