Locking and Unlocking Bins in Your Warehouse
In Cetec ERP’s cloud-based system, you can improve your sales, purchasing, and inventory processes all at the same time. When you’re trying to figure out how much product you have left, Cetec makes it easy to see everything all at once. Inventory is organized into “bins” for a more accessible warehouse, and to make items easier to locate. Sometimes a bin becomes “locked”, which means a user can’t pick parts from that bin on an open order.
A bin can be locked for these reasons:
1) If the user puts a manual lock on the bin by clicking the ‘edit’ button to the right of the bin name and clicking the ‘Lock Bin?’ checkbox.
2) If the user puts a manual lock on the bin when receiving the part into inventory by clicking the ‘Lock Bin’ on the warehouse screen.
3) If the part has an expiration date beyond today. The expiration date is also set by clicking the ‘edit’ button to the right of the bin name. To disable the lock feature when bins expire, edit the configuration setting [Lock Bins When Expired] to 0.
4) If parts are not inspected upon receipt.
With the newest Cetec ERP Release 3.9, the config option now exists to determine whether or not to determine locked bins / FIFO layers (e.g. locked pending incoming inspection, locked due to expired material, etc.) on supply/demand material forecast (waterfall). Config setting is titled “Use locked bins in waterfall” - set to ‘1’ to enable this behavior.
If you have a locked bin that you want to unlock, go to your warehouse inventory and click the blue ‘Edit’ button to open up the BIN edit screen.
Next, uncheck the locked? toggle box and click ‘Set BIN Data’.
The unlock should be instant upon clicking the ‘Set BIN Data’ button to update the BIN to being unlocked. You will need to adjust the ‘Expiration Date’ field as well so it does not automatically lock the BIN again.
Usually the ‘Shelf Life’ field is set to 10 which sets each BIN’s expiration date 10 weeks out from receipt of those parts. If the product is not likely to expire within that time frame, you may want to edit the ‘Shelf Life’ setting on the part. This will then allow you to remove the expiration date from that field. You can then set the BIN to “unlocked” and click ‘Set BIN Data’. That will remove the expiration date and get the BIN to unlock.
With so many user-friendly features, Cetec ERP makes it easy to lock and unlock bins in your warehouse. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team if you have any other questions about this topic!