Manufacturing
The two warehouses a manufacturer runs
The material store and the finished-goods store, kept on one ledger: lots arriving with expiry dates and an inspection step, pick faces that refill before the bench runs dry, finished goods leaving with the right paperwork and a value taken from the real cost layers.
Captured at receiving with its expiry date and the supplier’s own reference, and it stays on the movement all the way out, tied to the order it left on.
Allocation starts from the nearest expiry date and leaves expired lots out: out-of-date material does not end up in a job by accident.
A minimum stock level per item and an alert when availability drops below it: you find out before it runs out, not once the line is down.
Cost comes out of the actual receipt layers, and at year end the statutory stock ledger is valued on those same figures.
A manufacturer keeps two warehouses in one building: raw materials and components on one side, finished goods ready to leave on the other. The questions are always the same — do I have enough material for Thursday’s job, where did the lot the supplier recalled end up, what is the stuff on my shelves actually worth. CargoNode answers all three from the same place, because underneath sits a movement ledger that is never rewritten: every consumption and every finished-goods receipt is a line somebody approved, and stock is the sum of those lines.
The warehouse questions a shop floor asks every day
A shop floor does not ask the warehouse to plan: it asks the warehouse to be reliable. The questions above come round every week and they all have the same source — the movement ledger, which is written and never rewritten. Stock is not a number somebody typed in: it is the projection of those lines, recomputable at any moment, and every night a reconciliation genuinely recomputes it from the ledger and reports any drift. That is why the answer to “which lot was it” does not depend on who happened to be on shift.
- An append-only movement ledger: a line once written is never edited and never deleted
- Stock is the projection of the ledger, recomputable line by line
- A nightly reconciliation that recomputes from the movements and reports the drift
- Every movement carries warehouse, location, lot, state and stock owner
- Whoever proposes an adjustment cannot approve it: those are two different permissions
| The Monday-morning question | Where the answer sits |
|---|---|
| Do I have the extrusions for Thursday’s job | In today’s availability, with the reorder point warning you first |
| Which lot did the frames fitted in March come from | In the movement ledger, line by line |
| Where did the lot the supplier recalled end up | In stock by lot, location by location |
| Who did that lot go out to, and on which order | On the outbound movement, which carries the order with it |
| What is the material store worth tonight | On the actual cost layers, not on an average |
| Who declared that consumption, and who approved it | On the adjustment, with both names and both dates |
Materials coming in: lot, expiry, inspection
You receive against a purchase order or blind — because the lorry turns up either way. Where the quantity unloaded differs from what was ordered, the line stays flagged as over or short instead of being quietly squared off. Line by line you capture lot, expiry date and cost. A zero cost does not get through: it is rejected, except on the reason codes that genuinely allow it, because material booked in at zero poisons the value of the finished goods for months; a cost out of scale against history warns instead, without blocking the dock. Incoming inspection is not a tick box: the goods go into quarantine, no order can commit them, and they only come out on a release. Then put-away is guided, with a double scan confirming where they were set down.
- Receiving against a purchase order or blind, with over-receipts and shortfalls flagged on the line
- Lot with expiry date, best-before date and the supplier’s own reference
- Zero cost rejected; out-of-scale cost flagged without stopping the dock
- Quarantine and release: material under inspection is in the building, counted, and cannot be committed
- Guided put-away with a suggested location and scan confirmation
- Receiving, inspecting, putting away and valuing are always on; supplier records and purchase orders sit in the Accounting module
- RECEIVED12 drums · lot L-0912expires in six months
- UNDER INSPECTIONquarantinein the building, counted, uncommittable
- RELEASEDcertificate inpickable from here on
- ALLOCATIONahead of the ones bought earlierits shelf life is shorter
A zero cost is refused, except under the reason codes that genuinely allow it; a cost far off the historical range warns and asks for confirmation, without stopping the dock.
Components on the shelf: reorder points, replenishment, units
Every item can carry its own minimum stock level, and below that threshold you get an alert rather than a discovery with the line down. Pick faces have a minimum and a maximum: when the minimum is breached, a replenishment job from bulk appears on its own, before the face runs dry. And units of measure do not force you to pick one: you buy by pallet, store by carton, consume by piece — the conversion factor is photographed onto the document line and the quantity in the ledger always stays in the base unit, so two balances can be compared without converting them in your head.
- A minimum stock level per item, with an alert when availability drops below it
- Minimum and maximum on the pick face, with replenishment generated by itself
- Multiple units for buying, storing and consuming, with the factor photographed onto the document
- Ledger quantities always in the base unit: balances stay comparable
- Units and real weight on the same line, for variable-weight materials
- Allocation starts from the nearest expiry date, and expired lots stay out of it
- MAXIMUM1,000 unitswhat the bench holds
- MINIMUM200 unitsbelow this it gets replenished
- NOW180 unitsthe last pick took it under
- REPLENISHMENTjob raised from bulkbefore the bench runs dry
The fitter never notices, and whoever brings the materials knows what to do without being told. The item’s own reorder point is a different thing: below that, a warning goes out.
Declaring what you consume and what you make
The moment material becomes product is, for the warehouse, two movements: something goes out and something else comes in. You declare them with reason codes you create yourself — “production consumption”, “finished goods in”, whatever your people call it — and the engine genuinely applies them rather than treating them as labels: direction and valuation rule reach the ledger itself, and a reason code marked as internal keeps shop-floor moves from inflating your turnover figures. Every declaration is a proposal somebody else approves, and only the approval writes the movement: stock never drifts from reality without somebody having signed for it.
- Your own reason codes, each with its direction and its valuation rule
- A reason code can be marked internal, so shop-floor moves do not inflate turnover figures
- Proposing and approving are two different permissions
- The declaration carries location, lot, state and owner: it is not a lump total
- Finished goods can be booked in with their cost, and from there enter the valuation
- A wrong movement is never deleted: it is corrected with another one, and who approved it stays on record
- The shop floor lead proposesTwo lines with your own reason codes: 240 profiles from lot L-0912 out, 60 frames in, with location, lot, state and owner.
- The warehouse manager approvesProposing and approving are two different permissions, and whoever proposed is refused their own approval.
- The ledger takes the two movementsOnly now are the materials down and the finished goods up, with who approved and when.
- If a line was wrongIt is not deleted: it is corrected with another movement, and both stay written.
Repacking: from carton to piece, with the value following
The packaging rule says how many single pieces come out of a carton or a display unit, and it runs the way a carton actually gets opened at the counter — the direction you need when you buy by the carton and consume by the piece. When you declare the split, the carton leaves and the pieces arrive in the same transaction: there is no half-second in which the goods are nowhere. The lot is inherited along with its expiry date and the supplier’s reference, and the value is carried across from the real cost layers rather than recomputed by eye — the pieces coming out of that carton are worth what that carton cost. The operation carries its own identifier, so a double send does not produce two splits.
- A parent-to-child rule with the number of pieces per pack
- Out and in within the same transaction, never two separate steps
- The lot is inherited from carton to piece, with its expiry date and supplier reference
- Value carried across from the actual receipt cost layers
- Idempotent operation: a resend doubles nothing
- The same applies to display units opened at the counter and turned into usable pieces
- OUT1 carton · lot L-2609with its cost layers
- IN12 pieces · lot L-2609lot inherited, value carried across
- INHERITEDexpiry date and supplier referencethe carton’s own
Out and in sit in the same transaction: there is no half-second in which the goods are nowhere. The operation carries its own identifier, so a double submission does not produce two splits.
Finished goods going out, and the paperwork they carry
From order to departure the loop is the warehouse one: a soft reservation on confirmation, a firm one on release to picking, guided packing and multi-parcel shipping, with the Italian delivery note — the document that legally travels with the goods — numbered without gaps, per warehouse and per year. Its declared reason is not always “sale”: subcontract work and consignment are among the six the law allows, and those are the ones material leaves under when somebody outside performs an operation for you. At year end the statutory inventory comes out valued on the actual cost layers — on what the materials really cost — consistent with what the books expect.
- Soft reservation on confirmation, firm reservation on release to picking
- Single picking or waves, guided packing, multi-parcel shipping
- Delivery notes numbered with no gaps, per warehouse and per year
- Declared reason on the note: sale, return, goods on approval, subcontract work, consignment, free of charge
- Statutory inventory valued on the actual cost layers
- Barcode labels for location, item, carton and shipment
| Reason code | When you use it |
|---|---|
| Sale | finished goods leaving for the customer |
| Return | what comes back |
| On approval | goods sent out to be looked at |
| Subcontract work | material going out to whoever runs a stage for you |
| On consignment | goods left with a third party |
| Free of charge | what leaves without consideration |
The warehouse and the line: who does what
A manufacturer already has somebody deciding what runs and when — a manufacturing system, a shop-floor schedule, a supervisor with thirty years of it in his head. That part stays where it is, and there is no reason to rebuild it. CargoNode runs the goods before and after: the materials arriving, the lot they carry, the location they sit in, the value they hold, and the finished goods leaving with their paperwork. It is the natural setup, and it is also the one that lasts: planning gets revised constantly, while stock has to stand still on a ledger that is never rewritten — keeping them apart means reworking one does not reopen the other.
- The production stages stay with whoever runs them today: that part is left alone
- The goods before and after the operation sit on a single ledger
- Consumption and finished-goods receipts reach the ledger under your own reason codes
- Every line carries who proposed it, who approved it and when
- Finished goods can be booked in with their cost, and from there enter the valuation
| The decision | Who takes it |
|---|---|
| What runs today, on which machine and in what order | Your manufacturing system |
| How much material a job needs | Your manufacturing system |
| Where that material is and which lot it came from | CargoNode |
| When the component needs replenishing, and from where | CargoNode |
| What the shelves are worth tonight | CargoNode |
| Which document the finished goods leave the gate on | CargoNode |
Frequently asked questions
How do we record material consumption and finished-goods receipts?
As a declaration: whoever does the work proposes the consumption and the receipt using the reason codes you created, whoever answers for the warehouse approves, and only then do the movements reach the ledger with location, lot, state and owner. That is where the control sits: proposing and approving are two different permissions, and cycle counts measure real accuracy instead of assuming it. A wrong line is never deleted — it is corrected with another line, and both stay written, with the names and the dates.
A carton that becomes twelve pieces: how is that kept straight?
Through the packaging rule, which ties parent to child with a number of pieces. When you declare the split, the carton leaves and the pieces arrive in the same transaction: the lot is inherited along with its expiry date and the supplier’s reference, and the value comes from that carton’s own cost layers, not from an invented average. The operation carries its own identifier, so a resend doubles nothing. The same holds for a display unit opened at the counter.
Will the lot traceability hold up under an inspection?
What is written stays written: the lot arrives at receiving with its expiry date, best-before date and the supplier’s reference, it sits on every movement that touches it right through to the outbound one — which carries the order it left on — and the ledger accepts neither edits nor deletions. From a lot you can read how much is left and in which locations, and who it went out to: the chain of movements, with their lots and their dates, is what you put in front of an inspector.
How do I keep track of what is at a subcontractor?
The material leaves on a shipment, and the delivery note carries subcontract work as its declared reason — one of the six the law allows — numbered in the same series as every other: what went out, when and to whom is written on a document. To hold the balance of what is out there as well, you use a warehouse in the subcontractor’s name, fed by transfers. The two halves are not stitched together today, and that is the thing to settle at the start: the delivery note comes out of the shipment, the balance out of the transfer, and a transfer takes a running number of its own without issuing a delivery note. If subcontracting is the centre of your operation it is the first thing to set up together, because it is also what makes the figures readable straight away.
We work with variable-weight materials. Do you handle them?
Yes. On the movement the real weight travels next to the units, on the same line: it is not a notes field and not a second item record. So a coil, a sheet or a wheel of cheese is counted in pieces and weighed for real, and the two figures stay paired for the life of the movement.
We already have a manufacturing system. Do the two work together?
Yes, and that is the natural setup: your system decides what runs and when, CargoNode holds the goods underneath — lots, expiry dates, locations, value — and takes every consumption and every finished-goods receipt into the ledger, with the reason code and the name of whoever approved it. The split lasts precisely because it is clean: planning gets revised often, while stock has to stand still on a ledger that is never rewritten.
Let’s walk the loop on your own materials
Tell us how materials come in, how your people declare what they consume and what has to leave with the finished goods. In half an hour we walk the whole loop on your own items: the lot landing on the dock, the consumption declared and approved, the finished goods leaving with their paperwork.
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