Stock Module

This module can be applied for the simplest stock management case where you are

only interested in knowing the quantity of each product in your stock as for a complex

warehouse(s) management case, where for example each product gets a specific

location in the stock and upon delivery it needs to be picked at a certain location and the

products need to be packed in boxes and put on a pallet.

Because of this huge difference in application, the main principles briefly will be

explained first, whereafter we will dedicate one chapter on how to use the warehouse

management in its simplest form. From the third chapter on, we will explain every step

in more detail, allowing you to discover the full potential of the module.

1 Main principles explained briefly

Stock moves, locations, pickings and picking types

A stock move is the elementary model in OpenERP that can move stock between 2

locations.

In order to make it easy to move multiple products at once and pass that as an

assignment to a warehouse operator, we use pickings that group these stock moves.

We want to categorize the pickings in picking types. As a warehouse manager you want

to follow up the progress of the operations between the same (kind of) locations. E.g. in

the standard warehouse, not configuring anything, you will have 3 picking types: the

incoming, internal and outgoing, but it is possible to create a picking type for all the

packing operations that need to happen at the packing table. The Warehouse > All

Operations dashboard allows to see the progress of the pickings for each picking type.

You might have a weird feeling talking about moving from location A to location B, even

for deliveries and incoming shipments. That is because OpenERP uses a double-entry

concept similar to double-entry accounting. In OpenERP you do not talk of

disappearance, consumption or loss of products: instead you speak only about stock

moves from one place to another.

To satisfy the need for a counterpart to each stock movement, the software supports

different types of stock locations:

Physical stock locations,

Partner locations (suppliers and customers),

Virtual locations as counterparts for production, inventory and scrap.

Partner locations represent your customers' and suppliers' stocks. To reconcile them

with your accounts, these stores play the role of third-party accounts. Receipt from a

supplier can be shown by the movement of goods from a partner location to a physical

location in your own company. As you see, supplier locations usually show negative

stocks and customer locations usually show positive stocks.

Virtual locations as counterparts for production are used in manufacturing operations.

Manufacturing is characterized by the consumption of raw materials and the production

of finished products. Virtual locations are used for the counterparts of these two

operations.

Inventory locations are counterparts of the stock operations that represent your

company's profit and loss in terms of your stocks.

In Odoo, locations are structured hierarchically. You can structure your locations as a

tree, dependent on a parent-child relationship. This gives you more detailed levels of

analysis of your stock operations and the organization of your warehouses.

Warehouse

A warehouse represents the building where we stock our goods. In case of multiple

warehouses, you can enter the warehouse on your purchase orders and sale orders,

such that your transporter knows where to deliver the goods or pick them up. That is

why a warehouse also has an address and a name.

A warehouse corresponds also to a location. As the locations are hierarchical,

OpenERP will create one parent location for the warehouse that contains all the

different locations in it.

When you create a warehouse, the system will create the necessary picking types and

main child locations for this main location in the background.

MTO (Make to Order) and MTS (Make To Stock)

A product can be MTO or MTS. When a product is handled MTO, it means we will

handle each order (e.g. sale order) individually and procure what is necessary,

separately for every order. When a product is handled MTS, we wait until there are

sufficient orders and then we order everything at once taking into account a minimum

stock (or a stock forecast) into account. In OpenERP, we can automate minimum stock

rules through reordering rules (or orderpoints) as shown in the next chapter.

States of moves

Draft

Confirmed (Waiting Availability)

Waiting (Waiting Another Move)

Assigned (Available / Ready to Transfer)

Done (Transferred)

Cancel (Cancelled)

When we create a move, it will be in draft state. It will have no influence on the virtual

stock of the product. It is only when we confirm the move that we make clear to the

system that this move will be executed and should be taken into account for ordering

new products. The next state will however be different according to the scenario.

For example, if the product is MTO and we have a delivery order from Stock to

Customers, it will wait for a specific purchase order and will have the waiting (Waiting

Another Move) state. In case of an MTS product, the move will be configured as such

that it will look for available stock in the source location itself and it will stay in the

Confirmed (Waiting Availability) state.

In these confirmed or waiting states it is possible to do "Check Availability". If it can find

the necessary stock, the state goes to Assigned. In this state it is possible to effectively

execute the move and transfer the products. Incoming shipments are automatically

available. Effectively executing the move, brings it to the done state and makes it adapt

the quantity available on hand.

Normally, the picking associated to the move, will have the same state as it moves, but

the picking can also have a partially available state. It is possible that some products in

the picking are available and some are not. On a sales order or delivery order picking,

you can specify if you want your customer to be delivered as soon as possible when

only a part of the products is available (partial delivery) or only all at once when

everything is available (in order to save on transport costs for example). So, if you can

do a partial delivery, the picking state will be partially available when only some of the

products are available (even a part of a move).

Reordering rules, procurement and procurement group

Procurements represent needs that need to be solved by a procurement rule. For

example, every sales order line will create a procurement in Customers. This will be

solved by a move for the delivery, which will, in case of a MTO product, create a new

procurement (need) in Stock, which will be solved by a purchase order if it also has the

buy-route.

It is not required however, to have this need in stock created by a move. In case of

MTS, the move will not create a procurement (need), but the the procurement will

originate from a reordering rule created for this product in stock.

An reordering rule (= minimum stock rule) applies the following rule: if the virtual stock

for the given location is lower than the minimum stock indicated in the rule, the system

will automatically propose a procurement to increase the level of virtual stock to the

maximum level given in the rule. We underline that the rule is based on virtual quantities

and not just on real quantities. It takes into account the calculation of orders and

receipts to come.

You can also set multiple quantities in the minimum stock rules. If you set a multiple

quantity of 3 the system will propose procurement of 15 pieces, and not the 13 it really

needs. In this case, it automatically rounds the quantity upwards.

Pay attention to the fact that the maximum quantity is not the maximum you will have in

stock. If we take the following situation: a company has 10 pieces of product with

minimum stock rules defined for this product by Min quantity = 10, Max quantity = 30

and Qty multiple = 12. If an order of 2 pieces comes, a purchase of 24 pieces order will

be executed. The first 22 pieces will be needed to have the correct quantity and the

other 2 to have a multiple of 12. In the very end, the stock of this product will be equal to

32 pieces.

Scheduler:

In order for the reordering rule to create the procurement, we need to launch the

scheduler. This can be done manually in Warehouse > Schedulers > Run Scheduler,

but will normally be automated by a scheduled action. (by default it is automated on a

daily basis)

Procurement groups:

Even when you have multiple lines in your sales order, you want one delivery order with

all the lines of the sales order. To accomplish this, Odoo groups the different

procurements of this sale order into the same procurement group we create for the

sales order. That way, the moves of a delivery order stay together by putting moves of

the same group in the same picking.

Consumables vs stockable products

Consumables will not be valued in the inventory valuation as they will have 0 value. It is

not possible to create reordering rules for consumables. It is also not necessary to

reserve stock for it as the move will go to the available state anyways.

2 Standard configuration

In this chapter, we want to show how to work with the simplest warehouse configuration.

(product MTO, product MTS with reordering rule, ...)

Suppose we have a little Apple Store. The warehouse will be Apple Store and we

manage only one location (no child locations). We put a minimum stock of 10 iPad mini

and 5 iPod nano. We don't have stock for iBooks, but when a customer wants one, he

can order one and will get it after a week.

We will create a reordering rule for every product with minimum stock. These orders

could also be created by the point of sale. The maximum of the orderpoint, we will take

15 and 10 and . This orderpoint will need to be created in the Stock location.

3 Beyond the magic of stock moves

In the following chapters, we go a little deeper into the mechanisms behind the

warehouse management. In this chapter, we handle the stock moves. Stock moves are

not only the basic notions through which stock is moved, but can be chained and will

determine their picking. Chained moves are not only necessary in case of an MTO

product, where the delivery waits for the specific incoming shipment, but for example

also in multiple step in or out or when resupplying from other warehouses. We will

describe how pull and push rules are applied to created such chained moves.

Assigning stock moves to pickings

When you want to give an assignment to a warehouse operator manually, you will

create a picking and create the moves in it by specifying the different products and

quantities. When confirming a sale order however, Odoo will create procurements which

will be solved bt creating moves. First, these stock moves will be created without

picking. In a second step, they will be attributed to an existing picking or a picking will be

created.

In order to assign the move to a picking, Odoo will check if the move was assigned a

picking type (e.g. Your Company: Delivery Orders) and if it does, it will search for a

picking to assign the move to. This picking should be in the correct state, picking type,

procurement group (=group of procurements related to e.g. the same sale order) and

source and destination locations. If no picking can be found, it will create a new one.

This mechanism allows for a lot of flexibility when for example some products have to

go through the Packing zone for packing and some don't. That way, the packing order

will still group the moves that need packing from the sale order and the direct moves will

be grouped in a separate picking also. For the delivery order, everything will be together

in one picking again.

A picking is almost entirely determined by the moves in it. The state depends on the

moves and the picking type, the source and destination location are those of the moves.

The scheduled date is calculated as a minimum date for the stock moves.

The state of a picking depends primarily on its moves:

If any move is draft, the picking is draft

If all moves are done/cancel, the picking is done/cancel

The other states depend however also on the move type. The move type determines

whether the customer expects to get all products of a picking at once (=all at once) or

he wants it delivered to him as fast as possible. (=partial) This move type can be

determined manually, or can e.g. come from a sale order where it will be passed

through the procurement group.

In case of partial, a special state exists: partial availability. It is possible that a move is in

the confirmed / waiting state, but has partially some stock reserved. This move will still

be in the waiting/confirmed state, but have a flag partially available. In that case, the

picking will not stay in the confirmed/waiting state but go to the partially available state,

which makes it possible to deliver the goods partially. A picking is also partially available

when some moves are assigned and others have no stock at all reserved.

Sometimes a move does not have a picking type. This means it will not be assigned to a

picking. This is the case for inventory corrections and moves in and out of production.

Procurement (=pull) rules and push rules to create chained moves

Push rules:

A rule that triggers another stock move based on the destination location of the original

move. The new move has as source location the destination location of the original

move.

Example: When products arrive manually in the Input location, you want to move them

to Stock with a push rule afterwards.

So, when a stock move Supplier Input is confirmed, this rule will create another

stock move: Input Stock. It allows for 3 modes: automatic (the second operation will

be validated automatically), manual (the second operation must be validated manually),

manual no step added. (the destination of the first move is replaced instead of creating

another stock move.

Push rules should typically only be used on incoming side when a purchase order is

created manually and the goods need to be transferred to stock.

Procurement (=pull) rules:

Pull rules are not the opposite of push rules! Its very different as push rules impact

moves and pull rules impact needs. (procurements) It is actually better to call them

procurement rules. It is however true that the push rules are applied on the destination

location and pull rules on the source location.

When a stock move is confirmed and its procurement method is 'Advanced: Apply

procurement rules', it will create a procurement in the source location for the quantity of

the move. To fulfill this procurement, a procurement rule needs to be applied on this

procurement. There are several types of procurement rules with different results: move

products from another location to the source location, purchase to the source location,

produce towards the source location.

A procurement does not need to be created by a stock move however. A user can

create a procurement manually and when we confirm a sale order, Odoo will create a

procurement per sale order line in the Customers location. Actually, this system of

procurements, stock moves and procurement rules is used consistently throughout

Odoo. Even in the simplest warehouse configuration, when we run the procurements

generated from the sale order, these procurement rules will generate the delivery order.

Procurements will pass through the following states when everything goes well:

Confirmed: State when the procurement after the creation of the procurement

Running: A procurement rule has been applied successfully (=> created a move

or quotation or manufacturing order)

Done: The procurement rule has been applied and the products have passed or

are in the procurement's location

It is however possible that the procurement goes into Exception when no procurement

rule can be found or when it is not possible to apply the rule (e.g. no supplier defined for

the product). When the products are no longer necessary, it is possible to Cancel the

procurement.

By default, the JIT scheduler is installed and the system will try to check the

procurement immediately when it is confirmed. If this would give performance issues, it

is possible to uninstall this and then it will only run the procurements immediately

generated by the sales order. This will result in a delivery order, but the procurements

generated by the stock moves in the delivery order, will not be run. This will however be

done by the Scheduler.

A push rule can not be applied anymore when the rule was created from a pull rule, so

pull rules kind of have priority over the push rules.

Procurement method of stock moves and procurement rules

Whether a confirmed stock move created a procurement in the source location and

applied the procurement rules, depends on its procurement method. It has to be 'Apply

procurement rules'

When a user creates a stock move in a picking, the stock move will have its

procurement method 'Default: Take from stock'. This means it will not create a

procurement in the source location created to the move and will try to find the products

in the available stock of the source location. This is also the most logical thing to do

when some goods need to be transferred internally for example to move death stock to

the back of the warehouse.

If the user chooses however to change the procurement method to 'Apply procurement

rules', a procurement will be created in the source location. And for example, creating a

delivery order could lead in the simplest case (with purchase) to creating a purchase

order the delivery order will be waiting for.

When you have procurement rules in a Pick > Pack > Ship configuration, it might be

interesting to apply the procurement rules as it will generate the moves from stock to

pack when you create a delivery order. That way you can send something from the

stock manually and still go through the pick/pack steps.

The procurement method is also only interesting for internal or outgoing pickings.

Incoming shipments do not need to reserve stock, so they are always 'Take from stock'.

Maybe you wonder how it is possible to create chains of more than two moves this way.

When a procurement rule creates another move, it can determine the procurement

method of the new move. In other words, it can determine if the new move will again

look for procurement rules or will take from the stock.

This makes it possible to create long chains. For example, an MTS product with pick

pack ship, will start with the confirmation of a sales order. This will create a

procurement, which will create a move from Output to Customers with procurement

method "Apply procurement rules". This will create procurement in Output. This will

continue like this until the procurement in Pack creates a stock move, which will have

"Take from stock" instead.

Original moves: The previous move(s) in the chain all arriving in the source

location

When a move has original moves, it can only reserve stock that passed the original

moves. This is also why the state for these moves will go to Waiting Another Move

instead of Waiting Availability.

A move can only have one destination move, but multiple orginal moves. Suppose you

have two moves that are chained. When the first one is split, the second one has 2

original moves and both moves have the same destination move.

If the second one is split however, the split move, won't have any original moves on

itself, but will check if it has not been split from a move with original moves, and might

as such also take the Waiting for Another Move state.

Applied to MTO and MTS products and sale order and dates

The checkbox MTO in the product form is actually a procurement rule that may be

applied. This means that the delivery order from stock will be created with procurement

method "Apply procurement rules" instead of "Take from stock".

Lead times

All procurement operations (that is, the requirement for both production orders and

purchase orders) are automatically calculated by the scheduler. But more than just

creating each order, Odoo plans the timing of each step. A planned date calculated by

the system can be found on each order document.

To organize the whole chain of manufacturing and procurement, Odoo bases everything

on the delivery date promised to the customer. This is given by the date of the

confirmation in the order and the lead times shown in each product line of the order.

This lead time is itself proposed automatically in the field Customer Lead Time shown in

the product form. This Customer Lead Time is the difference between the time on an

order and that of the delivery. There is also the sale_order_dates module that can help

to promise a date to a customer. Below is a calculation from the OpenERP books.

To see a calculation of the lead times, take the example of the cabinet above. Suppose

that the cabinet is assembled in two steps, using the two following bills of materials.

Bill of Materials for 1 SHE100 Unit

Product Code Quantity UoM

SIDEPAN 2 PCE

LIN040 1 M

WOOD010 0.249 M

METC000 12 PCE

Bill of Materials for 2 SIDEPAN Units

Product Code Quantity UoM

WOOD002 0.17 M

The SIDEPAN is made from an order using the workflow shown. The WOOD002 is

purchased on order and the other products are all found in stock. An order for the

product SHE100 will then generate two production orders (SHE100 and SIDEPAN) then

produce two purchase orders for the product WOOD002. Product WOOD002 is used in

the production of both SHE100 and SIDEPAN. Set the lead times on the product forms

to the following:

Product Code | Customer Lead Time Manufacturing Lead Time Supplier Lead Time

SHE100 | 30 days 5 days

Product Code | Customer Lead Time Manufacturing Lead Time Supplier Lead Time

SIDEPAN 10 days

WOOD002 5 days

A customer order placed on the 1st January will set up the following operations and lead

times:

Delivery SHE100: 31 January (=1st January + 30 days),

Manufacture SHE100: 26 January (=31 January 5 days),

Manufacture SIDEPAN: 16 January (=26 January 10 days),

Purchase WOOD002 (for SHE100): 21 January (=26 January 5 days),

Purchase WOOD002 (for SIDEPAN): 11 January (=16 January 5 days).

In this example, OpenERP will propose placing two orders with the supplier of product

WOOD002. Each of these orders can be for a different planned date. Before confirming

these orders, the purchasing manager could group (merge) these orders into a single

order.

Security Days

The scheduler will plan all operations as a function of the time configured on the

products. But it is also possible to configure these factors in the company. These factors

are then global to the company, whatever the product concerned may be. In the

description of the company, on the Configuration tab, you find the following parameters:

Scheduler Range Days: all the procurement requests that are not between today and

today plus the number of days specified here are not taken into account by the

scheduler.

Manufacturing Lead Time: number of additional days needed for manufacturing,

Purchase Lead Time: additional days to include for all purchase orders with this

supplier,

Security Days: number of days to deduct from a system order to cope with any

problems of procurement,

It is important to make a difference between production orders and purchase orders that

are chained until the sale order (MTO) or when the chain is interrupted somewhere by

an orderpoint. When the scheduler creates the procurement of an orderpoint, the date is

again today, so orders for an orderpoint need to be delivered faster, than in case of an

MTO.

4 Complex logistic flows

In order to use the logistic flows to its fullest, you should activate the Advanced routes in

Settings > Warehouse.

In the previous chapter, we talked about procurement rules and how they were applied.

We have not talked yet about when these procurement rules can be applied and how to

configure them.

A lot of Warehouses have input docks and output docks or have a packing zone where

people want to repack the packages for the customer. This can become quite complex

and in order to manage this better, we group procurement rules and push rules into

routes before having them applied to product, product categories, warehouses, ...

Using these routes is simple as you just need to select them on e.g. a product or

product category, but configuring them correctly is a little more difficult. This is the

reason why OpenERP will create the necessary routes automatically when you create a

new warehouse. Configuring the warehouse can then be a simple as choosing two step

incoming and 3 step delivery, will always be supplied from warehouse B, will be

purchased, ...

We will however explain the routes as you might maybe enhance the basic config from

Odoo.

Routes

A Route is a collection of procurement rules and push rules. Routes can be applied on:

Product

Product Category

Warehouse

Sale Order Line (activated through setting Settings > Configuration > Sales >

Choose MTO, Dropship, ... on sale order lines)

On the route itself you can specify if you let the user change it on one of the above

models. For example, MTO and buy routes will simply be configured on the product

level and then the user can choose the routes he want in the product form.

How does the system choose the correct procurement rule

When a sales order creates a procurement it passes some useful information to it. First,

a sales order has a warehouse where the goods need to be picked up. This warehouse

will be copied on the procurement. For example, when you have a procurement in

Customers, but you know it has to be delivered from Warehouse WH, it can add a route

with a procurement rule from WH/Stock to Customers and it will not apply a

procurement rule from WH2/Stock to Customers. Second, it is possible to supply an

extra route on the sale order line itself. This can come in handy when you decide on the

sale order what route to follow e.g. if you sometimes decide to do dropshipping, you

could enter it there. These routes are copied on the procurement related to the sale

order line.

These routes on the procurement itself can also come in handy when the procurement

can not find a suitable rule. By adding a route, you can solve the procurement according

to the situation. (e.g. a certain product needs to be manufactured sometimes or bought

sometimes)

When Odoo needs to find a procurement/push rule, it will check the routes that can be

applied to the procurement as follows:

It will try to find a rule from the route(s) on the procurement first

If it does not find any, it will try to find a rule from the route(s) on the product and

product category (+ its parents)

If it does not find any there, it will try to find a rule from the route(s) on the

warehouse

If in any of these cases, multiple rules are found, it will select the rule with the highest

priority. This sequence can be changed in Warehouse > Routes (drag/drop the lines).

Normally, this will play almost no role as configuring this way makes it really complex.

Actually, when you select MTO on a product, this is a route that is chosen. As in the

basic configuration, it is defined on the product. (it is shown in the product form in a

special widget that shows all the possible elements it could have in the one2many and

you can select them) As such, this route will be chosen over the standard route and will

have a rule that puts procure method "Create Procurement on Source" to stock. In the

route MTO all such rules for all warehouses will be put in the standard configuration.

The reason behind such a configuration is that in most situations, the routes followed

through the warehouse are the same for almost all products. The exceptions on it can

be defined for certain product categories or products. Some things like MTO or

buy/manufacture might be better to put on product level. And then it is still possible that

you change your mind on the sales order line.

For the inter-warehouse configurations, there is also a possibility to put a warehouse on

a procurement rule. These rules will only be applied if the warehouse on the

procurement is the same.

How does the system choose the correct push rule

Searching for a push rule is quite similar as for the pull rule. It will however just search

for the routes in the product and product category, then on those of the warehouse

passed to the move or of the picking type of the move and then it will search a rule that

is not in a route.

Simple Warehouse config

When you activate setting and go to Warehouse > Warehouse

and select a Warehouse (or create a new), you will have a simplified way to configure

these routes without worrying about its complexity.

For the incoming and outgoing shipments, you can supply how many steps are needed

to receive or ship goods. This allows you e.g. to receive at the docks, and move the

goods later on into a precise location in your racks. It can also be interesting to do some

quality control. For shipping, you can also put your products at the gates first, but you

might also want to package them at a separate location before bringing them at the

gates. These routes will be directly related to the warehouse.

If you check Purchase or Manufacture to resupply this warehouse, if a product is

manufacture/buy, it will also be able to buy/manufacture from/in this warehouse.

When you put a Default Resupply Warehouse, goods will always be supplied from this

other Warehouse.

You can choose multiple resupply warehouses. These are selectable on the product /

product category. This is used when some products are supplied from one warehouse

and others from another.

What happens behind simple warehouse config

The wizard will create all the necessary locations and picking types to support the

selected settings.

The Incoming shipments and Outgoing shipments routes are bundled into routes that

are on the warehouse. So, if you choose that warehouse, it will choose the route by

default. The incoming routes will also have the push rules associated with them.

The purchase to resupply is a procurement rule added to the buy route, which will also

buy to this warehouse.

Also crossdock is added as a route to the warehouse. This can be added on specific

products and product categories that upon arrival are almost immediately transferred to

the customer. (might be mostly the case with mto products)

5 Reservation of stock and doing pack operations

Quants, reservations and removal strategies

When the state of a move needs to pass from confirmed/waiting to assigned and the

move is not an incoming shipment, the necessary stock (=quants) needs to be reserved.

We need to consider the following when reserving stock:

If there are original moves, the stock has to come from these moves

If there are no original moves, it can take from the source location, but only if this

stock has not been reserved on other moves. If the user would want to take from

other moves, he can unreserve those.

Also in case of returned moves, the system will check if the stock was moved by

the move it was returned from.

When choosing the stock, we need to take into account the removal strategy.

The removal strategy determines the order which stock gets reserved first. By default

the removal strategy is FIFO (First In First Out).

A different removal strategy can be defined by product category and location. For

example, for a certain category of products LIFO (Last In First Out) could be chosen

when taking products from its stock location.

Quants are a technical object defining the actual stock. If you have for example 70

pieces of product A in location A, you can have one quant of 70 pieces, but it is also

possible to have several quants where the quantities sum to 70. This way it is easy for

the system to reserve stock, by reserving the quants. If it does not need the whole

quant, it can be split.

Packages and lots

Products can be put in a package and a package can be put in another package. The

same hierarchical system is used as is the case for the locations. When pack A is put in

pack B, its full name becomes PACK B / PACK A.

Lots are always linked to a certain product and can be put as being required depending

on the incoming/outgoing/full traceability selected on the product. If a warehouse

operator selects no lot (which you can only do if traceability is disabled), it can take any

lot or without lot. If he selects a lot, he has to take it.

In a picking, lots are defined on the pack operations and not on the moves. This also

means there is no virtual quantity of lots. What is possible is reserving some lots and

then you could see how much you have left of them. (e.g. by looking in the Quants view

which are reserved and which not)

Packaging and logistic units

Every package can have a packaging and a logistic unit. The logistic unit determines

the package itself e.g. it is a box 20x20x40 cm. It is possible to put different products

into the package.

A packaging is however related to one product and should be applied on homogeneous

packages (with only one product). It describes how the products are put on each other

e.g. you can put 20 pieces in box 20x20x40cm and on pallet 0.80m x 1.20m you will

have 3 layers of 24 boxes.

Pack operations

In order to define the operations that can be proposed / executed by the bar code

interface, we create / process pack operations. The stock moves itself will tell nothing

about (from) which package / (specific)location/lot to take, in which (specific) location /

package to put the goods. That is the job of the pack operations.

This is the model used by the bar code interface. There are actually 2 types of pack

operation:

Take entire package

Take products from a certain package or not in a package

Preparing pack operations

If a picking will be processed by the bar code scanner, Odoo will propose the pack

operations that need to be executed. If it is an incoming shipment, it will be based on

the moves, otherwise it will use the stock that has been reserved already.

Before creating the actual pack operations, Odoo will group the moves or reserved

stock (quants) by:

Lot: lot of the quant or empty if from stock move

Product: product of the quant or stock move

Package: the package from the quant or empty if from stock move

Source location: the location of the quant or the source location of the move

Destination location: For that we need to apply the putaway strategies

The putway strategies are similar to the removal strategies, but determine for the

original destination location a child location where the goods should be deposited

(instead as for the source location). By default, there is no putaway strategy defined on

the destination location. In that case, the goods will be deposited in the destination

location of the move. In the stock module, there is one putaway strategy: fixed location.

For each such strategy you can also specify the related location. Of course, based on

this, custom developments make it possible to implement the putaway strategy you

want (as it is applied on all of the stock being moved at once).

For the reserved stock (which also means it is determined which pieces of stock), Odoo

will try to find as many packages (and as high-level) as possible for which the stock is

entirely reserved and the destination location is the same for every piece of stock. That

way, the operator knows he can simply move the package to the destination location,

instead of having to open the box unnecessarily.

An example might illustrate this further:

Some pallets with product A and some mixed pallets with product A en B are placed at

the gates and need to be moved to stock. A picking proposes to move all products A

and B to stock. Product A has loc A as fixed location putaway strategy and product B

has loc B as fixed location. In the pack operations, OpenERP will make an operation by

pack for all pallets with only product A all to the loc A. For the mixed pallets, it won't be

able to make one pack operation. It will say: move the product A from the mixed pallet

to loc A and move the product B from the mixed pallet to loc B.

Unreserving

If we want to use a certain piece of stock on another picking instead of the picking

selected, we can unreserve this piece of stock by clicking on the Unreserve button of

the picking.

It is however possible that during the pack operations, the warehouse operator has

chosen the stock from another location. In that case, other quants need to be reserved

also. When processing this picking further on, the system will unreserve the stock and

do the reserve process again, taking into account the created pack operations from the

bar code scanner interface.

Bar code interface and checking pack operations

A picking can be processed in the back-office interface by processing the moves, but

then it will not be possible to do pack operations or change the locations.

If you choose in "Enter Transfer details" in the picking, the system will prepare the pack

operations and you will be guided to the bar code interface.

Also in the Warehouse > All Operations, it is possible to change to the bar code

interface and do all the pickings at once.

When using the bar code interface, the pack operations will be prepared as explained

above. In the bar code interface it is then possible to change the prepared pack

operations to the effective operations the warehouse operator executed.

The operator can filter the operations on product/pack/source location

The operator should fill in the quantity on the filtered line. He should type enter to

confirm. If the quantity is correct, the line will become green.

The operator might put the products in a new pack

Afterwards, the operator can process the products and mark as done. That way

they will get into operations done, instead of todo.

The operator can also change source/destination location

If everything has been done and the operator took the correct products, it will

also finish the picking.

If this is not the case, he can do "Create backorder", and then he needs to check if all

the products have been done or not. If only part has been done, OpenERP needs to

create a backorder for it. It is however more complicated than that. The operator could

have chosen other source/destination location or even create new pack operations with

new products.

In order to manage all these possible changes, in the background, Odoo is going to do

a matching between the pack operations executed by the warehouse operator and the

moves given as assignment beforehand. It is also possible that the operator chooses

other stock than was reserved at forehand. In that case, Odoo will need to redo the

reservation of the stock.

The matching of the pack operations and stock moves will determine if extra moves

need to be created or if some moves need to go (partially) into backorder.

6 Transferring

Actual transferring

If there are no pack operations, it will process the move as such. (with only the

information from the move)

In case of pack operations:

First it will check the matching between pack operations and moves and create the

necessary extra moves or backorder. After having split the moves and created the

extra, it can be necessary to rereserve the quants and recompute the matching. After

having done that, it will process all the moves that need to be done. It will look at the

matchings between the move and the pack operations and take them into account. That

way it will take the correct quants from the pack operation and put it in the correct pack

and destination location

Negative stocks

It is still possible that upon transferring for an internal shipment or delivery, the

necessary quants or stock can not be found. In that case, it will create negative stock

(negative quants).

When later on, a move brings in some goods that correspond to this negative stock, the

quant can be reconciled with it.

Normally, chained moves have to take from their original moves. Only when you do

force assign a move with original moves it can also take from the regular stock that is

not chained. It will however not assign this stock before actually doing the transfer.

7 Returns and cancellation

Returns

It is possible to create a return on a done picking. This wizard will propose to return

everything that is still in the destination location. If it can't find stock from the original

move, it will create negative quants.

Cancellation

When you cancel a procurement, it will cancel everything in the backwards direction.

When you cancel a move itself, it will cancel in the forward direction.

This will happen only if the move has the attribute 'Propagate Cancel and Split' set to

true. Also, when a procurement rule (or a push rule) is applied to create another move,

it will copy its 'Propagate Cancel and Split' on the move. On the procurement rules, it is

actually true by default. This also works for the purchase orders.

Procurement group propagation

A procurement group can be fixed on a rule, can be propagated (default = propagate) or

can be none. The advantage of putting a fixed procurement group on the rule is that you

could for example put all the orders for your picking in one giant picking. That way, you

take all the orders to the picking table and over there you could do the individual

pickings for every customer.

A procurement group can be put on a reordering rule also, which will put it on the

generated procurement.

This is not something which is propagated to the purchase / manufacturing order.

8 Inventory

When you start using Odoo, you might have an inventory to start from. (Starting

Inventory) You will enter all the products that are in the warehouse and Odoo will put

them in this position. When you validate this inventory, Odoo will create the necessary

stock moves that will go from Inventory Loss to these locations.

It is possible that operations in the warehouse are not well registered and the stock in

Odoo does not correspond exactly to the physical stock in the warehouse. Of course,

you do not want this to happen, but errors do happen and a way to solve these

mistakes, is to check the inventory once and a while. Most companies will do an entire

inventory yearly.

You can decide to do a certain product or a certain location. So, you are not required to

do all the inventory at once. In a next step Odoo will propose all the current stock in the

system. When you correct this stock, Odoo will create the necessary moves in a second

tab. The inventory is done, when these moves are all transferred.

9 Use case: Small distribution Centre for a Warehouse Chain AllStore

A use case can make a lot of concepts real. That is also why it might be interesting to

think a while or to try to solve it yourself before reading the solution after the description

of the use case.

Description

AllStore wants to implement a small warehouse for 5 nearby shops. These shops will be

using the Point of Sale. 1 shop is rather big, the 4 others are really small. Everyday a

truck will go to the 5 shops as the fresh products need to be delivered every day. Also a

separate compartment in the truck is foreseen for the frozen products.

In the warehouse itself, we have docks for Input and Output. The fresh goods will be

crossdocked as much as possible as they will arrive early in the morning from the

supplier and will then be processed and transferred to the stores on the same day.

The frozen goods will be received at the docks, but not far from the fresh products as it

is a little colder over there. Once processed, they will go into the freezer, where they will

be taken from their pallets.

The frozen and fresh goods will be delivered from the supplier. The frozen goods have a

lot and expiry date on their individual packages and we won't enter them in the system

as they expire that fast, but for the fresh goods, we need to supply the dates.

There also a lot of dry products, that are sometimes bought from a supplier and will

sometimes arrive weekly from a truck from the main warehouse of AllStore.

For outbound, the dry products will be packaged before being shipped. Also the frozen

goods need to be picked for that. The consolidation zone for frozen goods is however

different than that for the normal dry goods.

The distribution centre is also used as a manufacturing plant for coffee. The coffee will

be supplied to the main warehouse and the material necessary will come from the

stock. The production manager will input the necessary production orders when

necessary. For every manufacturing order a separate order will be made for the raw

coffee, but some secret ingredients will come from stock. It is important to know which

coffee is made from which lots.

Solution

As modules, it is clear we need stock, point of sale, purchase, sale and manufacturing.

For the settings for the warehouse, we want to use multiple locations and advanced

routes. We also need packages, lots and expiry dates on those lots. It is also in handy

to see the UoMs as Apples and Pears will be measured by kg instead of by unit.

When we want to configure this in OpenERP, we will typically start by configuring the

warehouses. The logic for choosing the routes in OpenERP, is to first check those of the

warehouse and then those of the product and product categories. So, the logic for

configuring, is to put the generic routes on the warehouses and to put exceptions on

these general rules on product and product categories.

The default Your Company warehouse can be the main warehouse. We skip this

configuration as it is not our goal. The only thing we know is that the coffee might be

supplied from our distribution centre.

Then we configure the Distribution Centre. As products always pass through the

docks, by default it will be two step input and 3-step output (pick-pack-ship). Dry

products will follow this simple flow.

We will also manufacture and purchase in this warehouse. (Will only be done when it is

configured on the product, even if we check the checkbox). We will not supply a default

resupply warehouse as it might be bought, but the main warehouse will be one of the

supply warehouses.

The shops can be created by using single step incoming/ outgoing and each time the

Distribution Centre as default resupply warehouse as the goods are always delivered to

the shop from the Distribution Centre. 2-step incoming might be in handy for the bigger

shop as it can be in handy to scan the goods upon arrival before putting everything into

the store itself.

As fresh products are always crossdocked, we can create a category with fresh

products and put the CrossDock route on it which was created. This crossdock route,

created by default, will always apply the procurement rules..

As it is not logical to run between the freezers and the dry products, their stocks should

be separated and should be handled by different pull flows. Frozen goods and dry

products should be on different pickings when handled inside the warehouse. (not for

shipping)

This means we will need to alter the routes and locations and provide 2 extra product

categories (Frozen and Dry). We can start by creating two child locations of Stock:

Stock / Freezer and Stock / Dry. For the warehouse DC, 2 routes were created that

need to be changed: 2 step inbound and 3-step pick pack ship. We can duplicate those

two routes for the frozen. In the 4 routes we need to change the stock location to the

stock/Freezer or stock/Dry accordingly.

On the product category Frozen Goods we will need to put the two duplicated routes.

That way, only the frozen goods will be sent to the freezer.

For the manufacturing of the coffee, production orders will be created manually upon

need in dry stock, but the raw coffee beans as raw materials will 'apply the procurement

rules' and need the MTO route. The secret ingredients will be taken from the stock. We

should not forget to create a BoM for the Coffee with the Raw Coffee Beans and the

Secret Ingredients in it.

As the routes have been configured, we can create products. As the products will be

handled by the PoS in the shops, it would be nice if at least some of them can have

minimum stock rules in order to replenish them there. So we need to define reordering

rules (= minimum stock rules) for these products in the Shop1 / Stock location and

Shop2 / Stock location. For the fresh products, this is all we need to do as they will be

crossdocked in the Distribution Centre and this will work MTO. For the frozen and dry

products, we need to define an orderpoint in the stock of the Distribution Centre also.

Take care that the orderpoint is defined in DC/Stock/Freezer and not DC/Stock for

example. No rule will be found in Stock.

Putaway strategies can be interesting in order to find back our products easier and to

give them a fixed location. For example we can create a sub-category Stock / Freezer /

Freezer A with a putaway strategy in Stock / Freezer with fixed location Freezer A.

For the fresh products, we need to supply a lot. This can be done by selecting Track All

Lots on the product form.

By default, products will have the buy route, but if they get resupplied from the main

warehouse, it is possible to change on the product form. Suppose even that you don't

know for certain products as both strategies are possible. So, if you uncheck buy, no

route is active on the product form, the procurement will go into exception. Then you

can put the right route (buy or supply from main warehouse) as preferred route on the

procurement.