EDI Merchandise Receiving And Transferring from the Warehouse to the Retailer
EDI Merchandise operation description explains the common process of the public or private warehousing cycle. There are two major functions in the modern warehousing process: receiving merchandise from the manufacturer to the warehouse and transferring merchandise from the warehouse to the retailer.
EDI Merchandise Receiving
A public warehouse receives product from a manufacturer and holds the product until the manufacturer specifies to ship the goods. The first step in this process is to maintain product in the warehouse. To do this, the manufacturer will send shipment notification to the warehouse to specify that an order is to arrive. In EDI, this stock transfer is either an EDI 943 (Warehouse Stock Transfer) or Advanced Shipment Notification (EDI 856) document. Once the product arrives at the warehouse, the warehouse will confirm the notification of product arrival to the manufacturer sending back an EDI 944 (Warehouse Stock Receipt) document. The information sent back and forth contains the following information:
- Manufacturer Information
- Shipment Identification and Dates
- Carrier Identification
- Item Identification (UPC, Vendor Number, Retailer SKU)
- Shipment quantit
The “automation” of this process is extremely important to warehouses, as an automated process for the receiptand notification of goods is an essential method for reducing costs. Prior to automation, paper based systems were expensive to maintain. In addition, delays in information greatly reduced processing efficiency. For example, if an order is received but the warehouse inventory systems are not updated quickly, the product can not be sold.
Transferring Merchandise to the Retailer
The second function that a public warehouse must facilitate, is to receive requests from the manufacturer, to ship product to a retailer and to confirm the shipment of product to the manufacturer. This is accomplished in EDI by the manufacturer sending the warehouse an EDI 940 (Warehouse Shipping Order) and the warehouse confirming the shipment of the order by an EDI 945 (Warehouse Shipping Order Confirmation). In this cycle, the following information is passed:
- Manufacturer and Retailer Information
- Shipment Identification and instructions
- Financial Accounting information
- Carrier Identification
- Item Identification (UPC, Vendor Number, Retailer SKU)
- Shipment quantity
As with the stock transfer from the manufacturer to the warehouse, the automation of the shipment process has significantly reduced costs and improved the flow and speed of information.