Cycle Counts
Although the cycle count process may seem similar to a stock take, there are a few notable differences:
• The cycle count process is performed more often, and it is performed on only a portion of the warehouse instead of the entire warehouse.
• The cycle count process is designed to be a quick count of a certain section of the warehouse to validate that the expected pallets are in the
expected slots in the warehouse.
• Although the quantity of products is recorded throughout the cycle count the emphasis is on the pallet IDs and slots that they’re in.
• The cycle count is an internal process within the warehouse and therefore the results are not sent back to the ERP system. Nor does NStock
require any data from the ERP system to perform the cycle count i.e. all of the data that is required throughout the process exists within the
NStock warehouse management system.
• Website: A cycle count is created on the website.
o Slots Boundary: The user sets a boundary in terms of the slots that need to be counted. The boundary could be one or more of the following:
Area: a zone, aisle and or bay could be specified to limit slots for that specific area of the warehouse.
Product: a product code (barcode number or item number) could be specified to limit only slots that contain that specific product.
Product Category: a product category could be specified to limit only slots that contain product of a specific category.
o Existing processes running: before creating the cycle count, the system will check that there are no outstanding work tasks in the warehouse
across any processes i.e. there should be no outstanding put away, replenishment or picking tasks on the system. If there are outstanding tasks,
the system will provide the user with an appropriate error message.
o Cycle Count Entries: The system creates cycle count entries for every slot that was queried based on the boundary specified. However, only slots
with an expected pallet ID will be included since we can only validate pallet IDs that we know exist in specific slots. Hence empty slots will
not be included in the cycle count. Each cycle count entry will also contain information about the expected product. The entries for a cycle
count will essentially be a snapshot of the slots and inventory of a section of the warehouse.
Locking: any slot that is included in the cycle count will be flagged on the slot master as locked to prevent any other processes (put away,
replenishment, picking) from making any changes to these slots while the cycle count is in progress. Once the cycle count has been
completed, the slots for these entries will be unlocked to be used by the other processes.
o Assignment: cycle count entries (slots) are assigned to operators. A single operator can be assigned on or more entries.
• Mobile app: operators perform the cycle count at each entry that was assigned to them.
o Download Cycle Count Entry: the mobile app will download one cycle count entry at a time that has been assigned to the logged in operator. Online: if the online option was selected when creating the cycle count:
• System Driven: if the system driven option was selected when creating the cycle count, the system will sort the cycle count entries by Zone, Aisle, Bay, Bin etc. before responding with the next entry to count.
• User Driven: if the user driven option was selected when creating the cycle count, the operators will be required to enter the location that they are counting at. The mobile app will then download the cycle count entry for that location from the server. Offline: if the offline option was selected when creating the cycle count, the mobile app will download all cycle count entries that have been assigned to the operator.
• System Driven: if the system driven option was selected when creating the cycle count, the system will sort the cycle count entries by Zone, Aisle, Bay, Bin etc. before responding with the next entry to count. However, all of this happens on the mobile app without a connection to the server being required after downloading the entries to the mobile device.
• User Driven: if the user driven option was selected when creating the cycle count, the operators will be required to enter the location that they are counting at. The mobile app will then download the cycle count entry for that location from the server. However, all of this happens on the mobile app without a connection to the server being required after downloading the entries to the mobile device.
o Pallet ID: an operator will be directed to go to a specific slot and enter the pallet ID of the pallet that they found there.
Correct Pallet ID: if the expected pallet is entered by the operator, the system will proceed to the next prompt to ask whether the
location is empty or not.
• Slot Empty: If it is empty, the cycle count entry for the slot is marked as empty and the pallet ID is removed from the system.
• Slot not empty: if the slot is not empty, the mobile app will proceed to display the expected product information for the pallet and prompt the operator to enter the quantity. No validation is performed against the entered quantity. It is simply captured and saved against the cycle count entry. Incorrect Pallet ID: if the entered pallet ID does not match the expected pallet ID, the system will search for the entered pallet ID to determine whether the pallet exists in another slot. This search will first be done on the other entries of the cycle count. If it is still not found, the search will be done on the entire warehouse of slots to try and find the pallet that was entered. If the pallet ID still not found, the system will search across the replenishment history table to determine whether is any record of this pallet in the past movements of pallets.
• Not found pallet ID: if the entered pallet ID does not exist on the system, the operator will be presented with an error message.
• Found pallet ID: if the entered pallet ID was found, the operator will be prompted with a message telling them that it is the unexpected pallet that they’ve entered and whether or not they would like to view the details of the pallet they’ve entered. o No: if the operator responds with no, the dialog simply closes. o Yes: if the operator responds with yes, the mobile app continues to the next screen displaying the details of the entered pallet. On this screen, the operator is asked whether they would like to move the pallet from the slot where the system thinks it is to the current slot that they’re. Furthermore, it informs the user that the expected pallet (that was not found at the current slot) would be moved to the SIN bin. If the operator clicks continue, the system will perform the movement i.e. moving the entered pallet from the slot it thinks its at to the current slot and move the pallet that was not found to the SIN bin.
• Variances: any variances where the unexpected pallet was entered and a movement of pallets occurred, will be recorded in a list variances for the cycle count. Once the operator has completed all entries assigned to them, the variance list will be displayed to on the mobile app. The entire list of variances for all cycle count entries can also be viewed on the website.
This screen displays the lists of cycle counts.
• Name: the name of the cycle count.
• Created: the date when it was created.
• Completed: the date and time of when it was completed.
• Entries: the number of entries on the cycle count i.e. the number of slots.
• Variances: the number of variances that were created i.e. where the expected pallet was not there and a pallet movement occurred.
• Offline: whether the offline option was used.
• Zone: the zone that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Aisle: the aisle that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Bay: the bay that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Bin: the bin that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Level: the level that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Product: the product that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Product Category: the product category that it’s limited to in terms of the boundary for slots.
• Name: the name of the cycle count name. This field is defaulted to the current date, but it can be changed.
• Zone: the zone that you’d like to set as a boundary for slots to be included in the cycle count.
• Aisle: the aisle that you’d like to set as a boundary for slots to be included in the cycle count.
• Bay: the bay that you’d like to set as a boundary for slots to be included in the cycle count.
• Bin: the bin that you’d like to set as a boundary for slots to be included in the cycle count.
• Level: the bay that you’d like to set as a boundary for slots to be included in the cycle count.
• Product: the barcode or item number of the product you’d like to use as a boundary i.e. only slots with products of that item number/barcode will be included in the cycle count.
• Product Category: the category of products to include in the boundary i.e. only slots with products of that category will be included in the cycle count.
• Entries: selecting a cycle count and clicking the Entries screen will open cycle count entries page.
• Variances: selecting a cycle count and clicking the Variances screen will open the cycle count variances page.
You can also edit cycle count after creating it.
- After select any cycle count row. it will display two buttons. Entries and Variances
This page allows you to view entries for a cycle count and assign them to operators to completed.
• Location: the slot full name where the entry needs to be counted.
• Assigned: the operator that the entry is assigned to.
• Expected Pallet: the pallet ID the system expects to be at the given location.
• Actual Pallet: the actual pallet ID that the operator found at the given location.
• Moved from Slot: if the expected and actual pallet ID did not match and a movement occurred, it field will show which slot the actual pallet was
moved from into this slot.
• Slot Empty: whether the operator recorded this slot as been empty i.e. having no pallet.
• Barcode: the barcode of the expected product to be found at the slot.
• Item: the item number of the expected product to be found at the slot.
• Item Description: the description of the expected product to be found at the slot.
• UOM: the unit of measure of the expected product to be found at the slot.
• Act Qty: the actual quantity that the operator recorded of the product found at the slot.
• Completed: the operator that performed the count at the slot.
• Assign All: you can filter the entries in the grid by searching for something specific or entering a an area in the warehouse by entering he
zone, aisle bay or bin. Using the Assign All button you can assign all the filtered entries to a selected operator.
• Assign: an individual entry can also be assigned by clicking the Assign button on the row in the grid.
- The page allows you to review any variances (discrepancies) that occurred during the cycle count i.e. where the expected pallet was not found in the expected slot and the movement of pallets that occurred.
• Location: the slot full name of where the variance occurred.
• Expected Pallet: the pallet ID the system expects to be at the given location.
• Actual Pallet: the actual pallet ID that the operator found at the given location.
• Moved from Slot: if the expected and actual pallet ID did not match and a movement occurred, it field will show which slot the actual pallet was moved from into this slot.
• Item: the item number of the expected product to be found at the slot.
• Item Description: the description of the expected product to be found at the slot.
