Locations and travel
A warehouse system is judged in the aisle: how many taps to receive and put away, whether pick paths wander, whether a shortage can be explained on the floor. A long feature list with a dozen taps per put-away sends people back to paper. We walk a receive shift and an outbound shift: how locations are coded, how lots are placed, how cross-dock runs, how exceptions are keyed. Location rules (pick, reserve, damaged), lot policy (FIFO, allocated lot), and variance handling must be written in the design. Without that, book-to-physical “alignment” is a month-end all-nighter.
Receive and put-away
Inbound is not “scan a code and done.” Arrival vs appointment, QC, and put-away are separate states: arrived-uninspected, inspected-not-put-away, put-away then sellable. Outbound picks by wave or by order; shorts, movers, and each-picks have a strategy, then a check before ship. Stock numbers split available, allocated, frozen, in transit; upstream orders see available, not book total, or sales will sell frozen goods.
Cycle counts
Cycle, touch, and full-count variances locate to location and lot; recounts are signed; adjustments are permissioned. Blind vs open counts follow the control need. PDAs, guns, and scales are measured on warehouse work; tasks continue on a weak network. Returns, relabel, kits, and de-kits are usually where books go wrong and must be process, not a verbal exception.
Waves and put-walls
Wave, put-wall, or pick-and-sort depends on order volume and SKU mix—do not copy another warehouse. Expiry, serials, and containers (pallets, totes), if in scope, add scan points in the job instead of after-the-fact. Cross-dock and emergency inserts disrupt travel and need their own task type so they do not fight ordinary put-away for the same aisle. Count tasks must pause outbound on a location or you count and ship at once and never explain the variance.
One warehouse or line
Go-live is one warehouse or one work line, running receive-ship-return for a week on real SKUs. Upstream orders and downstream shipments connect, codes aligned to physical stock. Training is receiving, picking, and inventory accounting. A WMS that works has short put-away travel, a pick check, and count variances with a cause—book-to-physical is a work result, not a month-end journal.