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Articles（19）

AI Demand Forecast for a Small Warehouse: Start With Excel and a Simple Model

AI demand forecast sounds like enterprise software, but a small warehouse can start with Excel: a simple moving-average-plus-seasonality model, clean data, and a weekly review.

2026-11-01

The Systems Lab · OMS

OMS Implementation Master Data Cleanup Checklist: Align SKUs, Inventory, and Channel Mappings Before Go-Live

Most OMS implementation failures do not start with the software. They start with master data: duplicate SKUs, conflicting inventory definitions, and broken channel mappings that all surface on day one. This OMS implementation checklist ranks cleanup work by what can actually break an order.

2026-11-01

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

Warehouse Internal Audit: Stock Records, Process and Access, Checked in One Pass

A warehouse internal audit is the warehouse checking itself before anyone else does: stock records, process compliance, and system access examined in a single pass. This guide gives a practical, honest sampling checklist, a three-grade scale for grading findings, and the common traps that make self-checks useless, so problems get found and fixed before peak season or a customer inspection.

2026-10-26

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

Manual Returns Grading: Setting A/B/C/D Tiers for Restock, Repair or Scrap

After a big sale, returns roll back in by the truckload, and without a clear returns grading standard the warehouse falls apart fast. This is the A/B/C/D manual method one working warehouse uses now: four checks for looks, function, packaging, and dates, a line layout that keeps work moving one way, a recheck routine for disputed items, and a fixed path for every tier to restock, repair, discount, or scrap.

2026-10-25

AI Replenishment: Does Forecast-Driven Auto-Restocking Actually Work?

AI replenishment promises to end the stockout-vs-overstock dilemma. Lao Zhou runs the numbers first: what a day of stockout really costs, what a million in dead inventory costs, a side-by-side comparison of manual vs AI-driven restocking, and a break-even formula for deciding whether your operation is big enough to justify the investment.

2026-10-13

The Systems Lab · WMS Selection

One WMS, Many Warehouses: Three Pitfalls in Inventory, Permissions, and Billing

Expanding a multi-warehouse WMS network breaks in predictable places: inventory dimensions, permission boundaries, and 3PL billing rules. Here is how each fails, and a decision framework for getting them right.

2026-10-11

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory ControlNorth America

'Port Volumes Are Booming, Trucks Are Not: How Tariff Frontloading Rewrote Peak Season'

U.S. importers pulled holiday freight forward to dodge tariffs, setting port records — but the freight is sitting at the ports, not moving inland. Frontloading saves on tariffs and eats your cash flow and warehouse space.

2026-10-09

Inside the Warehouse · Slotting & Location Coding

'ABC Slotting Is Not Set-and-Forget: How Often Should You Re-Slot?'

Big companies buy dynamic slotting software. My little warehouse cannot afford that kind of money. A spreadsheet plus a quarterly movement review gets my pickers thousands of steps back every day.

2026-10-09

Marketplace Playbooks · Selling TipsAsia

Temu Semi-Managed: Balancing Pricing and Inventory

Temu semi-managed is a balancing act between pricing and inventory. A supply-chain veteran's practical guide: cost cards, pricing strategy, replenishment math, warehouse handoff, and stop-loss rules for slow movers.

2026-10-08

The Systems Lab · OMS

Out of Stock but Still Selling? The Backorder-Oversell Trade-Off Every OMS Needs to Get Right

Flipping on backorder in your OMS buys you more orders — and a cancellation-rate problem. I walk through the real math from a Black Friday case, where to set oversell circuit breakers, and which product categories should never be sold on backorder.

2026-10-08

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

Negative Inventory: The Shelf Is Full but the System Says Minus — Here's How to True It Up

The shelf holds 200 units while the system says minus 37. Lao Mi walks through the four ways negative inventory gets born — and gives a field-tested triage and prevention playbook: chase the dollars first, then the fast movers, plug the ship-before-receive leak, and write off the old sins with evidence.

2026-10-07

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

The Messy Ledger of In-Transit Inventory: Transfer Documents and Bookkeeping Between Warehouses

When you move a truckload of goods from one warehouse to another, whose books does the inventory sit on while it's on the road? A practical guide to the full transfer document flow, in-transit accounting, and the three mistakes I see most often.

2026-10-06

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

From 90% to 98%: A 90-Day Plan to Fix Inventory Accuracy

A Fontana e-commerce warehouse sat at 91% accuracy with a pile of stockout complaints. Here's the three-phase, 90-day plan I used to get it to 98% — with clear pass/fail criteria for each phase.

2026-10-06

The Systems Lab · OMS

One Order Split Across Three Warehouses — Did That Save Freight or Blow It Up?

Last Black Friday, a home-goods seller called me in for a rescue: their OMS had split a 5-line order into three parcels shipping from California, Texas, and New Jersey. The customer paid for one shipment; the company paid for three — and got a one-star review: "Five items arrived over three days, what a joke of a store." The owner asked: "Isn't the system supposed to pick the optimal warehouse automatically?" It did follow the rules. The rules were just configured three years ago, casually, and never touched since.

2026-10-05

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

Cycle Counting vs. Wall-to-Wall: Designing a Dynamic Counting Program

A once-a-year wall-to-wall count is like getting a physical once a year — by the time you find the problem, it's already late. Cycle counting turns counting into a daily habit: higher accuracy, lower labor cost.

2026-10-02

AI · Use Cases

Vision AI in the Warehouse: Location Audits and Anomaly Detection

Counting 50,000 locations by hand takes 3 days and still misses errors. Cameras plus AI compress the audit to 4 hours and lifted inventory accuracy from 96.5% to 99.2% — here's the deployment path.

2026-10-02

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

How to Get Inventory Accuracy to 99.5%: A Field-Tested Methodology

99% vs. 99.5% looks like half a point — but the stockout rate can differ by 2×. Climbing from 95% to 99.5% isn't about counting harder; it's about a methodology that kills errors where they're born.

2026-10-02

The Systems Lab · OMS

Omnichannel Fulfillment: How the OMS Unifies Online and Offline Into One Inventory

Ship-from-store, buy-online-pickup-in-store, one inventory pool — behind omnichannel fulfillment, the OMS weaves online orders, store stock, and DC inventory into a single fabric. Three fulfillment models and what it takes to land them.

2026-10-02

Inside the Warehouse · Inventory Control

Safety Stock and Reorder Points: Practical Math Beyond EOQ

The textbook EOQ formula assumes stable demand and fixed lead times — in real life, neither holds. Here's a practical algorithm that runs in Excel: dynamic safety stock plus reorder points, built for volatile demand and wobbly lead times.

2026-10-02

News（3）

Source：The Loadstar

Noble Chapter 11 – what happens when a big account is chief creditor

Boston-based Noble Supply & Logistics, a distributor of mission-critical equipment to U.S. government customers, filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware on August 30, listing assets of $100–500 million against liabilities of $500 million to $1 billion. The Defense Logistics Agency shortened its $1.2 billion weapons-support contract from ten years to under four and terminated about $400 million in orders, leaving Noble holding roughly $100 million in inventory and related obligations. The case is a cautionary tale for logistics businesses betting on big government accounts.

2026-10-12North America#bankruptcy#government-contracts#risk#inventory

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Source：Supply Chain 24/7

Retailers Bought Holiday Goods Early. What If They Don't Sell?

Retailers pulled holiday orders forward this year, partly to front-run tariff costs, raising the risk of excess stock if demand softens. B-Stock CEO Marcus Shen explains how retailers can manage surplus inventory, recover value through recommerce channels, and prepare for the coming wave of holiday returns.

2026-10-09North America#inventory#retail#holiday-season

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Source：CSCMP Supply Chain Quarterly

Logistics activity accelerated in September

Logistics activity expanded at its fastest pace in four years this September, with the Logistics Managers' Index climbing 3.6 points to 70.2 on tight warehousing and transportation capacity. Inventory levels grew faster while warehouse capacity contracted at its fastest rate in four years (39.3), as most stock sits upstream with wholesalers ahead of the mid-October push to retailers for peak season. With inventory costs at 79.9 — the third-highest in two years — shippers and warehouse operators should brace for continued cost pressure through the holidays.

2026-10-08North America#lmi#warehousing#inventory

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