Introduction

TrackStar is a highly flexible, Windows-based Warehouse Management System that can easily be configured for compliance with each of your customer's differing requirements. Unlike many warehouse management systems that require you to alter your existing accounting system and successful warehouse operations, the TrackStar Warehouse Management System was designed from the ground up to provide optimal flexibility and conformance to meet your unique business requirements. TrackStar dramatically cuts warehouse costs by eliminating paper work and costly shipping errors, improving staff productivity, and providing accurate inventory levels to all company departments.

TrackStar is a proven solution designed to interface easily with and enhance existing customer host accounting and order management systems. This means TrackStar can be implemented in a fraction of the time taken by other systems, which provides a quicker Return On Investment and improves customer service.

TrackStar is a complete Warehouse Management System (WMS), not simply a stock locator or asset management package. TrackStar has all of the features you would expect in a high-end WMS for dedicated warehouses. Designed to control the entire operation of any warehouse through the use of radio frequency mobile computers and your desktop, TrackStar can support anywhere from 1 to 200 concurrent users, making it the most scaleable and cost-effective WMS available.

TrackStar is specifically designed to support 3rd-party warehousing. It performs the basics of tracking all activities by cost and by customer, and it identifies inventory by owner and product, not just by item and location in the warehouse. TrackStar enables you to manage your multi-owner inventory dynamically while optimizing space utilization. And TrackStar goes beyond the basics: it allows you to accept Internet-based orders and kit, assemble, personalize, label, or configure each order to customer specifications. Finally, you'll be able to provide your customers with visibility of all products under your control.

A powerful billing module ensures accurate and timely billing for each activity performed on behalf of your clients. It captures and invoices distribution activity charges for storage and labor, and lets you bill customers or divisions. The billing module ensures accountability and improves profitability for the services delivered.

TrackStar provides core functionality for warehouse management, including order management, receiving, stocking, replenishment, picking, labor control, radio frequency support, and task management.

 

Warehouse Management Basic Functions:

 

 

TrackStar WMS Benefits

TrackStar provides the warehouse operator with a host of tools to improve customer service, productivity, and inventory accuracy, and to find value-added opportunities. TrackStar will contribute to:

 

Receiving

The receiving module gives your warehouse personnel the capabilities they need to begin the warehousing and distribution process accurately. User-definable options set at the customer and/or product level allow you to configure your system the way you want to use it for receiving. While your employees are receiving products, they have the ability to access information in other programs, eliminating time delays and call backs. A variety of billing scenarios can be configured for receiving activities as well as for monthly, split month, anniversary, or daily billing. TrackStar takes pride in delivering powerful billing options, and billing begins with receipts.

Receiving functions can be performed from either a Windows-based workstation or hand-held RF mobile computers. Breakdown and consolidation of incoming products are bar-coded for putaway. TrackStar can generate and print any industry-standard bar code with our standard compliance labeling features.

The Receiving module allows for:

Inventory

TrackStar keeps precise track of all inventory movement and quality data essential to a company's competitiveness.

Stock rotation rules provide FIFO lot control based on any part of the lot, including the expiry or production date. Consignee-based lot rules can be set up to determine if there is sufficient shelf life remaining. The system also provides shelf life and expiry date reporting

A flexible lot definition lets you create lot codes that can be segmented into components. This allows the user to record several key pieces of data such as expiry and production dates, date code, color, size, etc. Manufacturer's Julian date codes can also be translated into readable dates, thereby speeding up the receiving process as well as minimizing keying errors. Lot components can be treated differently for reporting, billing, and stock rotation purposes.

Inventory holds are user definable. This allows the user to work only with the holds they actually require. Holds can overlap, as well as be automatically applied when receiving, without operator intervention, as is common in frozen meat distribution. Stock can be shipped directly from hold.

Serial numbered goods can be tracked both during shipping and receiving, or just at shipping, as desired. Flexible rules exist and will easily accommodate, for instance, the handling of paper rolls, steel coils, drums, etc. This same capability allows facilities to cross-dock merchandise easily by tracking the unique package ID, while at the same time recording the cube characteristics.

Pallets (or any type of conveyance such as trailer, carton, etc.) may be identified and tracked by their unique identification code. This allows goods to be re-warehoused easily and accurately.

Fixed and variable weights can be recorded at either the lot or the unit level. Catch weighted items have the weight recorded during receiving and shipment.

Multiple units of measure may be set up for the same item, e.g. each, inner pack, case, pallet, tote, etc. Receipts and orders may be entered in any unit of measure.

With TrackStar, you can

Order Processing

Order selection criteria allow the user to manage the release of orders to the warehouse floor. RF directed picking or picking lists can be printed, as can a bill of lading. Flexible sort rules allow the picking in location sequence in order to reduce travel for the picker. Picking rules determine the best location to pick from, e.g. the pickline for pick cases, but bulk locations for full pallets.

TrackStar allows for multiple pick waves to be constructed easily by the warehouse manager. Waves can be based on the variable priorities and demands of your customers, such as pick-by-order, by shipping route, by customer, by shipper, or by your rules built to suit your particular business processes. Some unique features of TrackStar's order processing include:

 

Radio Frequency

Efficiency and timeliness are the most important operational aspects of your warehouse. Accurate, current information — for you and your customer — is the key to running an efficient and profitable facility. Today, accurate information about the products you distribute is as important as the products themselves. TrackStar delivers real-time information and control through the use of a seamless interface to the latest radio-frequency portable terminals and bar code technologies.

The TrackStar RF module makes real-time data access possible. You get immediate access to information from across your enterprise. Your warehouse personnel will receive, put away, pick, count, and move inventory using a hand-held or truck-mounted RF unit. Because the RF unit communicates directly with the system server, TrackStar allows you to navigate the maze of warehouse operations as effectively as possible. Real-time order picking also ensures proper rotation of date-sensitive items.

Your system can be configured to scan the product labels that are supplied by the manufacturer and produce labels that will assist you in handling that product while it is in your care. When you relocate product within your warehouse, your system will be instantly updated. There is no lag time between the physical movement of the product and the update to the system, reducing errors.

The use of RF equipment reduces to a minimum the time required to perform inventory counts. Whether you are doing full physical inventory or cycle counting, data collection is a snap. Errors due to unclear handwriting and numeric transposition are eliminated. TrackStar will immediately verify the information provided and alert the operator of discrepancies. System-assisted and full blind counts can be performed along with a comprehensive updating method that adjusts the system to reflect the results of your inventory and keeps a complete audit trail

Billing

The success of any company, regardless of its industry, rests upon its ability to bill and collect for the goods and services it provides. Warehousing, distribution, and logistics are certainly not exempt from this law of business. The only way to bill your customers successfully is to collect data required to generate invoices continually and efficiently. Typically, a great deal of extra time and unnecessary effort is spent at the end of every month reviewing and recreating the information necessary for invoicing your customers. This process takes a tremendous amount of extra work and invites errors. This results in lost revenue and opens the door for customers to successfully challenge their bills.

TrackStar automatically records the services that your facility provides, as they happen, and stores all the information you require when billing your customers.

TrackStar has an extremely flexible and comprehensive billing module. Both one-time fees and automatically recurring charges can be applied. For example, a charge for producing a bill of lading can be set up one time and reused. TrackStar also allows for the configuration of charges to be applied by specific customer and/or product. Nonstandard billing cycles, "free storage" days, and minimum values can also be configured for use by the billing module.

TrackStar will maintain, track, and report all your billing and invoicing records. The information may also be exported or communicated to a third party G/L package for company-wide tracking, auditing, and reporting.

Reports & Management

Management of any kind is next to impossible without assistance from supervisors and productivity reports. The key to reports, whether verbal, electronic, or on paper, is information. It is very difficult to track the progress of projects, employees, and product movement without accurate information and reporting functions.

Valuable management reports such as sales detail, sales analysis, inventory turns, handling profitability, and storage profitability are produced using the reports function. The information provided by these reports is critical to maintaining control over customer statistics and labor information.

Shipping

When inventory is removed, it is critical that shipments be reflected as soon as possible. When shipments are made manually or in a batch process, information about your inventory can become out of date and inaccurate. This can also happen when inventory reserved for orders is not deducted until the orders are shipped. Without a full-featured warehouse management system, you will continue to struggle with the issue of keeping your inventory current and watching for orders placed against inventory you don't have.

TrackStar supplies the mechanism for collecting the required data at the appropriate times in order to manage the order process. Orders placed against inventory are considered reserved until you decide to allocate inventory to them. Once shipments are confirmed, inventory automatically updates.

User-definable billing set at the customer and product levels allow you to configure the way you want to charge for shipping. Charges for outbound orders can be automatically billed or attached to individual shipments. Order minimums, line item minimums, pallet charges, and unit billing are just a few of the billing options available at the time of shipment.

Many customers like to use warehouses that will accommodate a pallet exchange program. TrackStar can track pallets in and out so you don't have to worry about losing money from lost pallets. Historical reports reflect surplus and deficit pallet levels with dates and reference numbers.

Labeling

Bar coding and labeling enable you to recognize, collect, verify, and distribute information about your products more efficiently.

TrackStar takes advantage of bar coding for data collection in the RF and Batch Collection modules. Many manufacturers today use bar code types like UCC-128, 3 of 9, and Interleaved 2 of 5 to identify their products for a multitude of purposes. The data contained in these labels help warehouses handle the product. Upon receipt and within the warehouse, TrackStar can produce labels for tracking, shipping, and consignee compliance. Compliance labeling is an important issue in today's distribution cycle. Many companies require specific labeling for all packages and shipments they receive. TrackStar allows you to keep up with changing technologies, formats, and compliance issues.

Task Interleaving (Optional Module)

This function is built into tasks like putaway, replenishment, and order picking to maximize worker productivity and minimize deadheading. As one task is completed, the system will direct the operator to perform a different task in the same area such as a let down, consolidation, pick, or cycle count. Task interleaving all but eliminates workers cruising the aisles with empty forks.

RF Directed Replenishment/Let-Downs

RF directed replenishment tasks are routed and dispatched by equipment characteristics and forward pick area demand. Special features of the replenishment function include: