Distribution Operations
Control System
C.A.Aleena Agnes & Esakki Raja
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Agenda
1 Introduction
2 Application Overview
3 Business Process
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Introduction
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Introduction
 VF Corporation is a worlwide leader in branded apparel and related
products with a vision to grow by building lifestyle brands that would
excite the consumers around the world.
 The various areas of business of VF Corp are imagewear, sportswear,
jeanswear, outdoor and contemporary brands.
 VF has managed exceptional capabilities related to consumer research,
inventory management, flow replenishment, sourcing and technology, all of
which help in ensuring the right products for their customers and retail
partners by knowing where and when they want them.
 VF has a strong business model that has led it to a strong and consistent
performance over any decades.
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Application Overview
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Application Overview
 DOCS is a system to control the inventory in the DC & provide the
capability to ship to customers on a timely basis.
 It is an integrated, custom system that interacts with the DC employees,
portable RF terminals, and material handling equipments such as conveyors
and scanning stations.
 DOCS executes primarily on an RS/6000 located in the distribution center
but also interfaces heavily with the mainframe, a PC that drives the tilt tray
sorter, PLC’s which drive the conveyors and devices which provide
communication with the RF equipment.
 There are six main functional layers to support six primary operational
areas within the DC such as receiving, order scheduling, replenishment,
order picking, shipping and inventory control.
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Business Processes
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Overview of Business Processes
DOCS is divided into six functional areas to support six primary
operational areas within the distribution centre. There is an additional area
referred to as Systems Operations which refers to items such as security,
interfaces with the other platforms.
 Receiving
– Automatic via conveyors and scanners
– Pre-notification is provided via the mainframe
– ‘Carton Create’ functionality & QC Audit Capability for inbound inventory.
 Order scheduling
– Automates order selection and prioritizing process
– Online function for selection of orders for the schedule building of waves
– Wave initiation function & prints pick tickets & bill of lading
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Overview of Business Processes (Contd..)
 Replenishment
– System management of random storage carton inventory.
– RF directives to replenishment operators to let down random storage
inventory to replenish pick runs.
 Order picking
– Capability of dynamic pick runs.
– Ability to quickly resolve picking errors.
– Tracks shipping cartons & update inventory locations throughout the picking
process.
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Overview of Business Processes (Contd..)
 Shipping
– Automatically print shipping documents.
– Capability of reporting a shipment complete.
 Inventory control
– Cycle counting capability for random storage and fixed picking runs.
– Record all inventory transactions.
– Batch uploads to the mainframe of all inventory and shipment information
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Receiving
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Overview of receiving
 The objective of receiving is to effectively initiate, control, and track the
receipt of goods into the DC.
 Receiving is initiated by the arrival of an inbound shipment at the DC.
 They come from sewing and finishing plants, outside storage facility, from
other DC’s, returns from the retailers or from other contractors.
 Merchandise typically enters the DC in one dozen(OD), two dozen(TD)
or in large puerto rican(PR) containers.
 All the return merchandise from the customer and irregular merchandise
from other plants have generic bar code which helps in diverting it to the
return area.
 Prenotified cartons received are known through the mainframe.
 The cartons which are not prenotified are entered into the DC’s
informational database, where this process is called as Carton Creation.
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Overview of receiving ( Contd..)
 The unloaded cartons are put into the receiving conveyor and sending the
carton to the receiving scanner and it will scan the bar code identification
and weigh the carton.
 The DOCS system determines whether it is known to the system and if it
is within the computed weight tolerance. If it is, it is send to the Quality
Control (QC) audit area based on the parameters and then logically it is
received into the DC.
 If scanner could not read the bar code identification it is automatically sent
to the no-read area where some human intervention is required.
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Overview of receiving ( Contd..)
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Order scheduling
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Overview of Order Scheduling
 The objective of order scheduling is to provide the picking, replenishment
and shipping workloads for the DC while filling customer requirements for
orders.
 This work has to be done as efficiently as possible given the makeup of the
customer orders that are being processed and the availability of the stock
in the DC.
 The Order Scheduling process consists of three major components
– Order Selection : This is the process where the customer orders are
selected according to stock availability and schedule dates using on-line screen.
– Wave Initialization/Initiation - This is the process where the schedule
parameters such as the number of waves, case selection method, and wavespreading parameters are set.
– Order Scheduling Batch Process -. This process spreads the shipping
cartons among the waves of the schedule according to the parameters that
were set in the wave initialization.
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Order Scheduling Components
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Replenishment
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Overview Of Replenishment
 The objective of replenishment is to provide an efficient means of
replacing product in the picking areas.
 Replenishment provides functionality for managing product stored within
random storage, outside storage and pallet storage areas.
 It also controls the removal of goods from storage areas for reasons such
as Quality Control Audit and relocation to other areas of storage.
 Pick Run replenishment is a process of removing cartons of goods from
random storage and sending the goods to the pick runs where they are
needed to fill customer orders.
 Replenishment requirements are determined in Order Scheduling, where
the specific storage cartons needed for a picking wave are identified.
 The contents of the carton which are picked for the needs are replenished
by putting back the required cartons which were taken.
 In a manual DOCS facility there is no conveyor system or tilt-tray sorter
for pick run replenishment. Pulled cartons are delivered to a designated
location.
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Replenishment Overview
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Order Picking
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Overview Of Order Picking
 The objective of picking is to accurately fill the demand of scheduled
orders at the carton level and prepare the merchandise for shipment.
 The cartons are processed through Ultra-Pick, Carton Flow and Static
Shelf picking areas in the DC and routing the cartons through Special
Operations and ultimately to the shipping/staging areas.
 A carton is created in the area because the first pick into the carton is to
be made in this area.
 A carton is transported via conveyor from another pick area because a
single pick area could not completely satisfy the pick requirements for the
carton.
 In a fully automated DC, movement of cartons between areas is
accomplished via powered conveyors.
 In a manual DC, movement of cartons can be either manual or by
conveyor.
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Overview Of Order Picking
 Picking process :
– DOCS prints all the necessary pick documents and shipping labels as soon as
order are ready to be filled.
– They will print in a central location and be distributed to the pickers.
– Before the start of each schedule, the pick documents will be sorted by wave
and picking area and will be put in groups depending upon the picking areas.
 There are different ways of picking such as directed picking, cluster
picking, pick bin adjustment, carton combining, UPC inquiry and exception
picking.
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Shipping
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Overview of Shipping
 When customer orders are received DOCS automatically print shipping
documents necessary for the shipping the required cartons.
 Shipping is done either RF based or terminal based in the distribution
centre.
 Loading done for shipping cartons are done through trailer loading and
fluid loading.
 Standard loading function is used to notify DOCS when a trailer is fully
loaded or a shipment is complete.
 By entering the bill of lading number one could know the entire details of
the shipment materials and where it is delivered it to.
 Capability of reporting whether the shipment is complete.
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Inventory Control
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Overview OF Inventory Control
 Cycle counting capability is there for random storage and fixed picking
runs.
 The products in the Random Reserve locations are cycle counted only for
the number of cartons in the location.
 All the transactions and shipping done are recorded for the reference.
 The cycle counting random reserve locations is a two step process:
– The user just scans all the available cartons in the location.
– The user audits the discrepancies in the location.
If the system sees any discrepancy between the scanned and the available
data, the system will ask the user to scan the neighboring locations’
cartons.
 If the carton is found in one of those locations then the system updates
the carton’s location to the new location.
 Incase the carton is nowhere to be seen in any of those locations then the
carton’s location is set to one of those logical locations where it is not
available for picking.

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Other System Operations
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Other System Operations
 End-of-Day Processing:
– DOCS requires a two-hour window each day to shutdown the system, back
up files and reboot the system. This is referred to as “End-of-Day.”
– Timing of this process is up to the individual DC, but it is important that it be
done daily to minimize the risk of losing data in the event of a system problem
and to allow back-up and summarization of data for reports, etc.
– Normal end-of-day is a three-step process:
• Shut down: Ends all processes, backs up the database and reboots the system.
• Startup : Restarts processes, unloads the database to a tape, performs system
balancing and creates an archive.
• Report: Generates daily reports.
– Each of these steps must run to completion and must be run in the proper
sequence.
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Thank You
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