How boXe would run your dock, your shelves, your pick and your vans, told as one Thursday and Friday. Read it with a scanner in your hand and tell us where we are wrong.
Nothing stops the floorA missing barcode, a short shelf, a dead battery: the system warns and records. It never blocks a pick, a receipt or a truck.
Every scan has a name on itShared scanners, personal PINs. Whoever typed the PIN owns what happens next, even in the cool room with no signal.
Count, never adjustNobody edits a stock number. You count what is there and the system writes the difference as a movement with a reason and a name.
One lot, one doorThe lot that left the shelf is the lot the driver handed over. A recall is a list of doors, not a guess.
The scanner
It is a web app on whatever Android scanner or phone you already own. Nothing to install from a store. The supervisor signs the device in once for the depot; from then on, each person types a four-digit PIN and the bar at the top turns green with their name.
The home screen shows only the flows that have work in them. The scan field is always listening, so nobody taps a box before scanning.
When the cool room kills the signal, the screen keeps working and quietly says saving…. Back at the dock the queue flushes in order, each scan still stamped with the person who made it.
Priya taps the expected receipt for the dairy. Four lines are already there from the purchase order. She scans the dock door label.
She scans the cream pallet's GS1 barcode. The line lights up with the lot and best-before already read off the label. She types 60.
Milk: twelve expected, ten counted, one crushed. She types 10, taps damaged, enters 1. The line goes amber: two short of the advice. Nothing asks her to explain to anyone yet.
One tap photographs the paper docket. Post. Stock lands at DOOR-1; the crushed carton lands in QUARANTINE with a reason. The receipt is now read-only. The PO updates itself.
Putaway shows four pallets with a suggested shelf each, from where that product went last time. She scans the cool room, then each pallet. The suggestion is only a suggestion; she puts the milk in the cool room instead of A1 by scanning the cool room.
15:05 · Picking in the cool room
The afternoon wave releases: 44 tasks. Tom is on the cool-room zone, so his tasks sort first. One task on screen at a time, a big Start button, no list to scroll.
He scans the shelf label. Green. Had he scanned the wrong shelf, the screen says this task is at COOLROOM and nothing moves. He scans a carton; product and lot match; he scans five more or types 6. Confirm. The next task is already up.
Task 7 wants 12 yoghurt. There are 10 on the shelf. He scans ten and taps Short, picks not on shelf, and moves on. He is already on task 8.
Meanwhile the system finds 8 of that lot on A1, makes a two-unit task for the A-zone picker, and drops a count suggestion on the office's list. Nobody rang anyone.
Priya scans the pick docket for the Bendigo café. The screen lists the order's lines and what the pickers brought to the bench. Everything is there.
New carton. She scans the milk case barcode once and it counts twelve. Scans the cream. Close carton: the weight is worked out from the product weights, the label prints with the customer, the day, the run and a QR the customer can scan to track it.
Complete packing. The order is now prepared. That single moment is what tells the dispatch side the delivery can be loaded tomorrow. The carton sits at PACK-1 waiting for the 05:50 loader.
Next order, the Wagga café: 10 yoghurt at the bench, 12 ordered. The screen says why (short, not on shelf, nothing found elsewhere) and asks complete with 10? Yes. The driver's stop card tomorrow says 10; the invoice bills 10; the office sees the short beside the pick that caused it.
05:50 · Loading Northern
Dave opens his run and taps Load this run. Eleven stops, listed last stop first because the last stop goes in first. Each shows its cartons: Bendigo café 0 of 2, pub 0 of 1 pallet, hotel collection, nothing to load.
He scans CTN-000418. It belongs to a stop on this run: green, one of two. The stock moves from the bench onto his truck in the ledger; the truck now has stock on it like a shelf does.
He scans a carton and the screen goes red: this is the Wagga café's, on Priya's truck, put it back. Nothing moved.
Stop 3 is one of two; carton 2 is not on the bench. He taps Left behind, reason not at bench. The delivery still loads, flagged; his stop card carries the note; the office gets a pack-back task at 08:00 and decides.
Depart. Loaded weight 1,840 kg beside the truck's 2,400 kg, shown as an estimate from product weights and never called anything else. The manifest prints.
LOAD · Northern · ABC-12305:58
driver: Dave N.
11 · Old Mill Bakery1 / 1 on
10 · Grand Hotel · collectionready
9 · Railway Hotel · kegs1 / 1 on
3 · Bendigo Café1 / 2 left behind
▮ CTN-000431 scanned
This is the Wagga Café's carton, on Southern (Priya's truck). Put it back. Nothing moved.
At the Bendigo café Dave hands over 12 milk and 6 cream. The moment he completes the stop, that stock leaves the truck in the ledger, lot and all. Stock fell for the first time since Monday's receipt, and the system knows which door the cream went to.
Wagga café: two yoghurts crushed, rejected at the door. They stay on the truck, in the ledger and in life.
The pub's gate is locked. Delivery failed. Six kegs ride around all day, flagged.
Back at the depot the van check asks one question with three possible answers: scan it off, it is not here, it is different. The kegs go to the bench, already re-linked by the office to Monday's replacement delivery. The yoghurt goes to quarantine with its reason. The van reads zero.
Where we probably got it wrong
These are positions we took without a floor to check them on. Each one is a two-minute conversation.
Shared scanners with personal PINs
We assumed a couple of shared devices and a PIN per person, and that the supervisor's sign-in on the device should last the shift. Is that how your floor works, or does everyone carry their own?
Blind counts by default
Stocktakes and cycle counts hide the expected number from the counter. We think that is right and that floor users should count, not adjust, with the office posting the difference. Would your people accept that?
No "receive all as expected" button
Receiving makes you scan or type each line. It is slower on a clean truck and honest on a bad one. Would you fight us on this?
A short pick never stops the picker
Tap short, pick a reason, move on; the system re-plans and the office sees it. Nobody is asked to go looking. Is that what you want, or do you want the picker to look first?
The van check is mandatory but never blocks
A driver must answer the one question before completing the run, but an unanswered check closes with a flag rather than trapping the driver at 17:40. Reasonable?
What to bring to the first session
Paper beats opinions. Each of these answers a question we could only guess at.
Your product list with case and inner barcodes
A rack map, or a few photos of the shed and the cool room with the shelf labels
Five suppliers' pallet labels and their delivery dockets
Your purchase order template
Last year-end's stocktake sheets and the variance report the accountant got
An afternoon's pick sheets
Your stock report and your "what to order" spreadsheet
Your returns pile: credit notes, a supplier claim email
A con-note or docket you send with the truck
If you bill clients for storage or handling, one client agreement and a month-end charge spreadsheet
Questions only you can answer
Question
What we assumed
When a pallet arrives and will not be broken down today, do you want to post a partial count now and the rest later?
Post what is counted; the rest is a second receipt when the pallet is opened.
Should posting a receipt print lot labels every time, or offer to?
Offer, one tap. A 3PL wants them every time; a wholesaler with printed supplier labels never does.
If the exact lot is not on the shelf but another good lot is, can the picker take it on their own say-so?
Yes, flagged; a supervisor PIN in a cold room stops the picking.
Should the pick screen show the customer's name?
Yes. The picker packs for a person, and the name catches a wrong pick at the bench.
Must every carton have a type (medium box, pallet) before it can close?
No. Type is optional; the manifest shows unknown weight honestly.
If the scanner is dead at 05:50, may the driver tap "load all" without scanning?
Yes, unless you switch that off. The morning must not stop for a battery.
Should a carton left behind automatically go on tomorrow's run?
No. The office decides at 08:00; an automatic tomorrow may not be what the customer wants.
When stock comes back off the van, should the driver scan the shelf, or can it land at receiving for putaway later?
Either.
May floor users create a new shelf location by scanning an unknown label?
Off by default; a switch turns it on for office users.
Should a counter be told that some of what they are counting is already promised to Friday's orders?
Yes, so a gap is not assumed to be theft.
Should the stocktake variance be valued at last receipt cost or average cost?
The product's unit cost as held, labelled with where it came from. Your accountant decides.
Should your customers see a stock status word ("out") in their portal?
Off by default; most wholesalers do not want customers to know.
What you would get, and when
The team builds for about four months. You are the floor it is built against, so the order is arranged around when you can stand in it.
Month 1customers · products · orders
Nothing on the floor yet. We walk the screens above with you and fix what is wrong before anyone codes it.
Month 2dispatch · drivers · stock ledger
Your shelves and products in the system with barcodes. Stock on hand you can scan against. Runs and driver phones for deliveries.
Month 3receiving · picking · packing · loading
The dock and the pick floor for real. You run a week on it beside your current system.
Month 4invoicing · fixes
Invoices from your deliveries to Xero or MYOB. The rest of the month is the list of things you found.
Names, products and times on these screens are examples. Every screen is drawn from the written specification the team will build from; the questions above are the ones that specification left for a warehouse to answer.