Facilities

This page is outdated. Please go to our new documentation under https://docs.fulfillmenttools.com/documentation.

Introduction

Facility is an umbrella term in our platform for all (fulfillment) locations in the network including stores, warehouses, dark stores, and more.

In the facility view, users can manage facility data and configurations such as fulfillment times, or available shipping providers ("carriers"). These configurations can have an influence on the routing decision as well as on the data displayed in the Operations App and the Backoffice.

The section is visible & editable by users with the role admin or supervisor.

Description

The following paragraphs give an overview over all data and configurations that can be defined for a facility.

Facility Data

Facility name

A facility has both an external as well as an internal name. The external name is, for example, used as the sender address on a shipping label and should feature the company name itself. The internal name can be used to differentiate between different facilities.

Facility status

A facility can have three different status with different implications for views and routing:

Status	Considered for order routing	Visible in the Backoffice
Online	✔	✔
Disabled	✕	✔
Offline	✕	Facility view not accessible

Facility type

A facility can be type “Store” or type “Warehouse”.

Service type

A facility can be of service type “Shipping” or “Pickup”. The service type has an impact on the routing decision and on the views and settings in the Operations App.

Service type	Operations App	DOMS
Click & Collect (Pickup)	Click & Collect handover section is shown	Facilities not considered by the DOMS for routing decisions as the decision from which facility the customer wants to pick up his Click & Collect order is already made in the web shop
Ship-from-Store (Shipping)	Label section is shown Ship-from-Store handover section is shown Switch offering to order a label or pick another task when reaching end of picking is shown	Only facilities with type "Shipping" are taken into consideration by the DOMS when routing a Ship-from-Store order

Fulfillment times

Fulfillment day and time

Fulfillment times are the days and time on which fulfillment is performed for this facility. They can but do not have to be be equal to the opening times of a facility. Fulfillment times can be configured for each day individually. Fulfillment times can also be configured within the network overview settings for multiple facilities.

Fulfillment times are considered within our platform, for example, when a target time is generated or when a time-triggered reroute takes place.

In case fulfillment times are not configured, there is a fallback on tenant level in place. By default, fulfillment times are set to Monday to Saturday, from 9am to 5pm.

Fulfillment capacity

The fulfillment capacity can be defined for each time slot within the facility settings. It reflects the number of orders, respectively pick jobs, that can be fulfilled in the time slot. When an order is routed to a facility with capacity information, the capacity value is reduced by the order for the next free capacity slot. To ensure that fulfillment capacities are considered within the routing, the capacity fence or rating needs to be activated.

Go here for more information on how the target time of an order is calculated considering capacities.

Fulfillment closing times

Fulfillment closing times are certain days where no fulfillment at all takes place such as Sundays or holidays. Fulfillment closing days can also be configured within the network overview settings for multiple facilities.

If a bulk update on fulfillment times and closing days is saved, already submitted times are overwritten!

Average fulfillment duration

Average fulfillment duration is a lead time or buffer time which represents the time it takes for an order to be ready for handover to the shipping provider or to the customer. This corresponds to the time from the creation of the pick job to the completion of the handover. It is used in our systems to calculate whether a successful completion of the order can be ensured in a facility.

The default fulfillment duration when creating a new facility is set to 240 minutes. The tenant-wide default value can be changed via API.

Carrier

Users can assign different carriers to a facility. With this information a fencing can be implemented where orders which need to be shipped by a chosen carrier are routed to a facility where this carrier is active. Carriers that are enabled on tenant level must also be enabled for the facilities in which the carrier is available.

Short-pick

A short-pick describes the case when an order could not be completely picked. This can happen when some ordered items were too low in stock or out-of-stock. By enabling the config, stock for an item in a facility is set to zero, if nothing or not enough could be picked for that item.

We strongly advise users to simultaneously activate theconfirmationOnShortPick in the picking configuration. Otherwise our systems cannot differentiate between cases where the user tried to pick an item and failed due to no available stock or cases where the pick job was re-routed before the user even tried to pick all ordered items.

Storage Principles

Storage principles for stock properties (such as best-before date) can be defined for each facility. The principle “unmixed storage” means that the same item with different properties (e.g., BBD) must not be stored on the same storage location. Enabling unmixed storage has the following effects:

• If a user tries to stow the same items with different properties on the same storage location, a user prompt is shown.

• For storage location recommendations only locations are shown where the unmixed storage principle is met.

The unmixed storage configuration should be disabled if stock properties are not relevant while stowing or relocating items.

FAQs

How to add facilities?

1. Select “Network View”

   
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview

   
3. Click on “Add facility”

   
4. Enter facility data and save facility

   

How to remove a facility from the network?

If a facility should no longer be used for order fulfillment, we would recommend to set the facility to "Disabled" first. As a consequence, no new orders are assigned to this facility. After all operational processes have been completed (and no more returns are expected for this facility) the facility can be set to "Offline". This should only be done if there is no need to access the facility from an operational perspective any more.

How to set fulfillment times and capacities?

1. Select “Network View”

   
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview

   
3. Click on the setting sign

   
4. Define individual fulfillment times and capacity

   

How to set closing times?

1. Select “Network View”

   
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview

   
3. Click on the setting sign

   
4. Click on “Add day”

   
5. Define individual closing times

   

How to set average average fulfillment duration?

1. Select “Network View”

   
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview

   
3. Click on the setting sign

   
4. Either activate the tenant-wide default duration or define a specific value for each facillity

   

How to connect carrier to a facility?

1. Select “Network View”

   
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview

   
3. Click on the setting sign

   
4. Activate carriers, that should pick up shipments from a specific facility

   
5. Enter or change the Carrier Credentials and click on “Save”

   

How to set stock to 0 in case of short-pick?

1. Select “Network View”

   
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview

   
3. Click on the setting sign

   
4. Enable this feature, if the stock should be set to 0 in case of an short-pick

   

How to use fulfillment capacity for capacity planning?

1. Select “Network View”
2. Click on “Facilities” to reach the facility overview
3. Click on the setting sign
4. Enable this feature if you wish to consider the fulfillment capacities for capacity planning (capacity per fulfillment time slot needs to be set within the “Fulfillment times” tab) In order to exclude facilities in the routing decision that do not have any capacities available in a desired timeframe the corresponding fence needs to be activated within the DOMS settings. There is also the possibility to give priority to facilities that have (more) free capacity by enabling the corresponding rating within the DOMS settings.