Directed putaway
What is directed putaway?
Directed putaway is where the system, not the driver, chooses the exact storage location for each receipt: the pallet arrives, the system names a destination (by rules, capacity, velocity and what is already there), and the task is executed and confirmed. The point is consistency: every receipt faces the same logic at the same moment, instead of whoever is on shift.
What it needs to work
- A live picture of locations: what is full, what is blocked, what is reserved.
- Item attributes that matter to placement: size, weight, hazard, velocity class, temperature.
- Confirmation at the destination: the task is not done when the pallet moves, it is done when the system knows where it landed.
- An override path with a reason, because the person on the floor sees what the system cannot; the choice stays with the system or with the person overriding it, not the forklift operator improvising.
What it fixes
It fixes the two expensive habits of manual placement: putting stock wherever there is room (which breaks velocity planning) and putting it somewhere nobody records (which breaks the count). It also makes splits explicit: when a receipt cannot fit one location, the system says so at the dock, not at the count.