SKULabs supports location naming within your warehouse to assist with tasks like order picking, stock counting, and receiving/put-away. You can use any alphanumeric naming scheme for your locations, but we have some recommendations to optimize location naming within your warehouse:
Alphabetized location names
SKULabs automatically sorts documents like pick lists by alphanumerical location names. You can use this to your advantage by organizing your location names in an efficient path from locations A to Z.
As an example, the location closest to the start of your picking area could be named something like "A-01", followed by "A-02", "A-03", "B-01", etc.
As long as sufficient inventory for each order exists in those locations, a printed pick list will follow that alphabetic sorting so that all of the items in a pick list can be pulled in one smooth path through your picking area.
Note: Where items are found in the same location, the pick list will sort by SKU.
Picking vs. storage locations
If you wish to track separate picking and storage areas for the same item, you can still use alphanumeric location naming to your advantage. You might create separate warehouses for picking and shipping (as location aliases are one per warehouse), then use prefixes that indicate each location as a picking vs. a storage location. i.e. "PICK-A-01" is the first picking location, while "STOR-A-01" is the first storage location.
How does alphanumeric sort work?
If you fail to prefix your lower shelf numbers with a zero, you may find unusual sorting of your locations.
Bad Example (do not use)
A-1-A
A-10-B
A-11-A
A-2-B
A-21-A
A-9-A
Location sorting is alphanumeric, the same as it would be in excel or many other applications so if you have 10-99 in your locations you will need to prefix the low numbers with a 0 (A-01-A). If you have 100-999 locations you will need to prefix 1-9 with two zeros (A-001-A) and 10-99 with one zero (A-010-A).
Good Example (under 100 bins per aisle)
A-01-A
A-02-B
A-09-A
A-10-B
A-11-A
A-21-A
Good Example (100+ bins per aisle)
A-001-A
A-009-A
A-010-B
A-090-A
A-100-A
A-101-A
Naming for different layouts
Not all warehouses are laid out in the same way. Location naming schemes should be customized based on the expected path that your team moves through your warehouse in order to pull inventory.
Many warehouses feature racked aisles positioned against the wall opposite the bay doors. This provides picking aisles that are one way in, and the same way out. Naming the locations so that they move in the same path that your team members would be is ideal, as illustrated below:
Similarly, a picking area that rotates all the way around a rack or shelving unit should have its locations named accordingly:
Give some thought to your own layout and walking paths to see how your naming scheme should be designed. Note that location names can be edited per item at any time, so what you initially decide on isn't permanent — don't be afraid to experiment!