What is a warehouse zone?
A warehouse zone is an area of the building set aside for one purpose, such as receiving, storage, quarantine or outbound staging.
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Why warehouses use zones
Zones split the building by purpose. Goods arrive in an inbound area, wait in storage, get checked in a quality area and leave from an outbound area.
The WMS uses zones to decide where stock may go and what it may be used for. Stock in quarantine, for example, should never be offered to an order.
Worked example
In this example, a 4,000 m² warehouse has inbound staging at doors 1 to 3, a storage zone of 12 aisles, a small QC zone, and outbound staging at doors 4 to 6.
A pallet that fails inspection moves from QC to quarantine. It never appears as available stock in the storage zone.
How Waresify handles it
Waresify has six zone types: inbound staging, storage, outbound staging, quarantine, QC and assembly. You draw zones in the 2D layout builder during setup.
Zones also set the walk order for picking. Each zone has a position in the pick sequence, and pick tasks follow it.
Questions
What is the difference between a zone and a location?
A zone is an area. A location is one slot inside a zone where stock sits. A storage zone may hold thousands of locations.
How many zones does a small warehouse need?
Usually four or five. Inbound staging, storage and outbound staging cover most operations, plus quarantine if you handle returns or damaged goods.