CDC receives boxed products or garments on hangers(GOH). Generally, trucks from suppliers consist of few product items. But tracks from CDC to regional warehouses consists of too many items. In regional warehouse when a truck from CDC is received it has to be checked for discrepancy between physical quantity and the quantity in packing sheet sent by CDC. This process should be done as quick as possible but without any errors. The most reliable and quick way of checking for discrepancy is to scan the bar code labels on products. In this post, the process of scanning GOH products is described. GOH products have inner labels and outer bar code labels. In regional warehouse every GOH item should be scanned. The easiest and most practical way is to scan outer bar codes. There are two outer bar codes: front and side bar code. Both bar codes contain the same information: UPC of the item.
As it is shown in the picture above, inner bar code contain only UPC code. It is needed while scanning on the POS (point of sale) machine in the stores. In warehouse it is not too practical to scan it. Inner bar codes are scanned only if the product came from a store and suppliers' nylon bag has been removed in order to sell it but after some time for some reasons had to be send back to warehouse. In the warehouse, if goods are from CDC and suppliers nylon bags with 20 digit bar codes on them, outer bar codes are scanned. When the product is scanned the information on the bar codes are stored automatically in warehouse database system. The information is following:
- From 3-7 digits: product series id. From these digits, it it is possible to get the supplier ID.
- From 9-15 digits: UPC code.
- From 17 to 19 digits: pack quantity. Some products are packed in packs by suppliers in order to ease some logistic operations. For instance, if a pack contains of 16 products and all of them have same UPC then 17 to 19 digits of outer bar code will be "016".
Inner bar codes for products sold by two pieces or more have a bit different structure. They consist of 10 digits. First eight digits represent UPC of the product, the following two represent the number of a set. For instance, if a pyjama consists of a top and a bottom, it has two inner labels with two bar codes on them. This product has to be sold as a part set, not separately. If such product sold separated there will be store stock problems because warehouse sent these products as one item. The last two digits from inner bar code from the top are "01", the last two digits from inner bar code from the bottom are "02". But from outer bar code there is no such possibility to know how many pieces the product consists of. It would be good, to program POS machine, so that before sale, if the bar code of scanned product consists of 10 digits, then to alert sales person to control if all parts of a product do exist. Also some alert systems on a POS machine should be done for shoes. Why shoes should checked on a POS machine is explained in article "Bar codes for flat goods".
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