Moving stock inside the warehouse: never without a record

Goods "lost" in a warehouse are often not lost at all; they are simply somewhere else. Someone pushed a pallet to the head of an aisle, someone merged two half-empty pallets, someone needed room and moved stock to another rack, and nobody recorded it in the system. The books show stock, the shelf is empty and finding it takes hours. Moving stock looks like simple work, but this is exactly where order breaks down.

Why there are so many moves inside a warehouse

• replenishing the pick location from reserve;
• merging half-empty pallets;
• bringing fast movers closer (re-slotting by ABC);
• putting returned goods back into storage;
• clearing or cleaning space before a season.

All of this is necessary work. The problem is not the move itself but doing it without a trace. On a re-slotting day dozens of pallets move, so the list of moves is drawn up in advance and carried out in order, each pallet ticked off when done. Without a plan, half stay at the old place and half go to the new, and two days later nobody knows which pallet is where.

The core rule: one move, one record

For every move, six things are recorded: what (item and batch), how many, from where, to where, who and when. That is a few taps on a scanner or one line on a sheet, for example: date, conditional code, 40 boxes, from B-04-2 to A-01-1, shift lead. Paper works as well: date, item code, quantity, old location, new location, signature, with the sheets entered into the system at the end of the shift. Above all, the record is made before the move or straight after it, not in the evening "from memory": from memory, some moves are always forgotten.

Recount the goods at the new location. If 40 units were taken and 38 are standing at the new place, the gap is found immediately, while everything is still fresh in mind.

Where goods stand in transit

Most confusion arises during the move itself: the goods have left the old place but are not yet in the new one. For this state, set aside a marked "transfer" area, for example a patch painted at the head of an aisle on the border between zones. Goods wait there temporarily and the record shows them "in transit". By the end of the shift the area should be empty; anything left over is an unresolved question. Goods should not stay there beyond one shift, or they become "lost" again. Attach a sheet to each pallet saying where the goods go next.

Merging partial stock

Half-empty pallets take up space and make counting harder. The rule is simple: if one item has two incomplete pallets, merge them.

A conditional example. A pallet holds 100 boxes. Three pallets carry 100, 35 and 20 boxes. By merging 35 and 20 you get 55 boxes on one pallet and one location freed. After merging, remove the label from the old pallet and apply a new one: two labels on one item confuse the scanner. Do not mix batches and expiry dates: putting different batches into one layer ruins later tracking. If the batches differ, do not merge them, or keep them on one pallet in separate, marked layers.

Who gives permission

Not everyone should be able to move everything. A simple scheme: replenishing the pick location and moves within a zone are done with the shift lead's knowledge; moves between zones and the release of goods from quarantine or damaged stock need the approval of the responsible manager. Remember that when goods pass from one zone to another there must be a handover point. Keep a list of staff entitled to move stock and update it when someone leaves or changes role. For night and weekend shifts, agree in advance who does the moving.

Common mistakes

• "I'll put it down quickly now and write it up later": later never comes.
• The goods are put in the new place but the label stays at the old one.
• Batches get mixed during a merge.
• The transfer area turns into a temporary warehouse.

Conclusion

A move record keeps the exact "address" of the goods. Each small entry saves hours on count day, because the cause of a difference is known at once. SkladKontrol carries out stock counts zone by zone, and cycle counting helps to catch location errors early.