Shipping wholesale orders or "whats in the box?"

Shipping is so simple, or is it? We now have cross border trading, if you are selling into the EU and you might have a requirement to support Serial Shipping Container Codes (SSCC). And not to mention that we need to understand what the shipment looks like.

Pick, pack and dispatch

To ship the order you need the warehouse staff to follow a process and collate information in a system that supports your customers requirements.

The customer might require:

1) Specific packing requirements - carton only, carton on pallets

2) Specific labeling requirements - the label format plus the data contained on the label

3) If SSCC is required then a strict adherence to the packing process must be followed

4) A file will be required that will then describe the shipment to support the file format required by the customer

The shipment will be fully defined so that you know what article is in which carton and possibly on which pallet.

Standards

If an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) file is to be sent then the file format standards defined by the governing bodies (UNEDIFACT, GS1) will need to be followed.

If SSCC is required then there are requirements set out here: https://www.gs1.org/docs/idkeys/GS1_SSCC_Executive_Summary.pdf

Or here: https://www.gs1.org/standards/id-keys/sscc

The requirements should then link back to the requirements defined by your customer.

Change management

Having worked through a delivery of SSCC, this process will impact the warehouse operation.

It is important that if you are undertaking this journey that you involve the warehouse management team and staff as the need to understand the changes to their working processes. The development will change the way the staff process orders, generate labels and process the data in whatever system is used in the warehouse.