Summary
StockIQ supports a simulated loading of your order into containers, so that your orders can be executed in the real world. As an extension of this, StockIQ can also automatically target your order to full containers using the Order Wizard.
The Order Containers screen is available from the Edit menu of Place Orders, in step 2.
There are two chief ways to use the Order Containers screen:
- Open it directly and select a container to see how full hypothetical containers would be for your existing order. When you take this approach, the wizard will start on the 1st of two steps and allow you to select the container you want to use, as well as the method for loading containers (see below)
- Use the Order Wizard to target your order to full containers, and then use the Order Containers screen to view the results and move inventory around as need be. When you take this approach, you will have selected your container and container loading method in the Order Wizard, so the container wizard will load on the 2nd step directly, showing you the container loads
Steps
Whether you load the wizard initially, it will show you step 1. This is where you select your container, and select your container loading method, (see below)
The final option is whether or not to "Reset Container Loads". If you check this checkbox, any existing container number assignments are reset, and the loading is re-run from fresh, rather than using whatever existing container number assignments might have been created.
When you've made your select, click "Next". The container wizard will run.
Loading Results
The loading results has 2 tabs of information available
Container Load Details Tab
In this tab, all of the line information for the container loading is shown. By default, the grid is grouped by container number, so you can easily see what is in each container. The Container Percent Usage column is useful to see how full your container is. If you've done targeting to full containers through the order wizard, these should be very close to 100%.
You can move items between containers if you pull the "Container #" column down in the grid and edit the container number, e.g. you can change the "1" to a "2" to move an item into a different container. After you make a series of changes, you can click the "Recalculate" button to re-run the container loading. Any containers that you have over-filled will be re-factored out to loadable container assignments again.
Summary Tab
This tab is a more condensed view, showing a summary of the container load facts:
- Container # - the proposed container load number
- % Full - how full this container is, based on whatever the limiting factor is
- Max % Full - reference of the max percent full for this container specified in the Shipping Containers configuration page
- % Available - What percentage is therefore available still to be filled
- Limiting Factor - What is the factor limiting the container load, is it weight, cubes, pallet size, etc? If you are shipping pillows, likely volume (cubes) is your limiting factor. If you're shipping bricks, likely weight is your limiting factor.
- Overloaded? - this will be checked if the container is currently ABOVE 100% capacity
- Weight - weight loaded into this container
- Cubes - Cubic volume of SKUs loaded into this container
- Pallets - # of pallets loaded into this container
- % By Weight - Percentage full, by weight
- % By Cubes - Percentage full, by cubic volume
- % By Pallets - Percentage full, by pallet positions.
Finishing Up
When you are happy with the container loads shown in the wizard, click "Apply Changes", and the newly adjusted order lines will be copied back into the main grid of the Place Orders screen.
Container Loading Methods
- Keep Items Together - This approach tries to keep all of a given part number in as few containers as possible. The idea here is to make unloading the containers as easy as possible, since Container A will have mostly one set of parts, Container B will have mostly a second set of parts, and so on.
- Evenly Distribute Items - This approach takes the opposite perspective, of trying to have a little bit of everything in each container if possible. This is more sensible when some of the items are a little bit dependent on eachother, such as matched sets of tables and chairs for furniture. If one container had all tables and the other had all chairs, you wouldn't have sets you could ship out until all containers were unloaded.