Systems vital for cold storage functionality

There are still many cold storage facilities in the Western Cape that are not using computer systems to help improve functionality of their stores, according to Macro 2000’s Anthea van Breemen. She said that warehouse managers today did not need to rely on a spreadsheet to manage the cold store, where wrong information entered could leave the business open to costly mistakes. “There are systems available that are designed specifically as operational software packages, offering a high level of functionality – and they are easy to use.” Van Breemen added that a good system – including those available from enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company Macro 2000 – should offer a warehouse map of the store by either racks or floor stacks. “A warehouse operator’s receiving operation should allocate pallet numbers, expiry dates, production batch numbers per pallet, and record the location of each pallet in the store,” she said. A typical challenge when issuing out stock was correct first in first out (FIFO) rules around trading, she added. “Using cold store management software your information for FIFO picking is presented to you in the correct sequence, whether by receipt date or expiry date,” Van Breemen explained. She noted that once stock had been selected to pick, the picking slip was printed in location sequence and pallet number for fast picking operations. “By setting up rules that force the correct pallet to be issued, your stock on hand is accurate, but so are your movements. This is extremely important for stock tracking and recall.”