Understanding Sealed Locations

Maintaining an accurate view of inventory in a warehouse is essential, but often long-term storage of material requires counting and recounting over time, and is rarely changed. TVA attempts to simplify the inventory accountability of long-term storage material through the ability to seal locations.

When sealing a location, an administrator is directing TVA to disallow inventory modifications, such as picks or stores, in the location. If such an action is required, the inventory location must be un-sealed and made available for use.

When sealing a location, it is recommended that the location be physically secure and enclosed if possible, ensuring that no material could be inadvertantly removed. Building on this security, TVA allows a secured tag to be assigned to the location, providing addiitonal confidence that the inventory has not been tampered with.

A secured tag, for example RFID-based seals, inform devices and infrastructure that the location material remains available and thus, as long as the seal tag is readable, the inventory is validated in a single read. In other words, if an RFID seal is placed on an enclosure, and the RFID tag is read, all material in the sealed location is updated and considered validated.

If a user or worker tampers with the seal and opens the location, the tag will no longer transmit during inventory surveys and reviews, and the location will rapidly fall out of compliance. This will allow the warehouse management team to physically review the location and inventory, make any adjustments required, and to re-seal the location with a new security tag.