Chapter 67: Radio Frequency Setup

Purpose: This chapter contains information on how you should set up your system in order to use RF (radio frequency) devices to help manage your inventory. The setup includes:

• warehouses

• locations

• system control values

• secured features

• default menus

• iSeries RF subsystem

See Chapter 66: Radio Frequency Overview.

In this chapter:

• Warehouses

• Staging Warehouse Locations

• Additional Main Warehouse Locations

• Default Warehouse Locations

• Pieces per Case

• System Control Values

• Return Disposition Value

• Secured Features

• Changing the Default Menu

• iSeries RF Subsystem Setup

Warehouses

RF requires that you have at least two warehouses defined on your system: a main warehouse and a staging warehouse. The staging warehouse differs from the main warehouse in that the Alloc (Allocatable) field and the Viewable in O/E (Viewable in Order Entry) field should be set to N. These settings will prevent the system from attempting to reserve stock that is currently in the staging area, and omit the stock from item availability calculations that display through Order Entry.

Additionally, you need to define the staging warehouse in the System Control file; see System Control Values.

Staging Warehouse Locations

The locations you create within your staging warehouse should include the following:

• an intransit location

• a primary location (for LPNs awaiting putaway in primary)

• a bulk location (for LPNs awaiting putaway in bulk storage)

• a returns location (for returns awaiting putaway)

• one or more backorder locations (for items whose total backorder quantity cannot be fulfilled from primary. You may want to create more than one backorder location to facilitate picking backordered items)

All locations in your staging warehouse should be defined as non-pickable and non-frozen (Pickable location = N and Freeze = N). Additionally, you should not define staging warehouse locations as primary types (Type = S, B, or T, but not P), so that the system will delete item/location records when you move stock out of the staging area, and will not delete LPNs when you move stock into staging (the system does not permit an LPN to exist in a primary location).

The locations you define in your staging warehouse need not be actual locations; instead, they may be "logical" places to receive stock that indicate the item's actual destination. For example, you might create a location in your staging warehouse named PRIMARY (which you would not define as a primary location type); when you receive stock into this location, the system would print LPN labels with the location indicated as PRIMARY, and the item's actual primary location appearing to the right. This indicates to your warehouse staff that the case, which is currently in your staging area, is awaiting putaway in the primary location indicated.

See Chapter 43: Creating and Maintaining Locations (WLOC).

Additional Main Warehouse Locations

You must define an intransit location within your main warehouse. Like the staging warehouse locations, this location should be non-pickable and non-frozen, and should be a type other than primary.

Additionally, you should define one or backorder locations if you will be picking from these locations in addition to primary. These backorder locations should be set up to mirror the backorder locations in the staging warehouse, except that you may want to the backorder locations in your main warehouse should be pickable. You may want to define these backorder locations as primary, so that the system will delete LPNs when you place stock in these locations. This would remove the need to delete LPN records through Displaying License Plate Information (WLPN) when you pick out of a backorder location.

When you receive into a backorder location in the staging warehouse, you will then need to process an RF receiving pull and put to the corresponding backorder location in the main warehouse.

Default Warehouse Locations

You need to identify the staging and main warehouse locations described above by defining them using Working with Default Warehouse Locations (WWDL). This identification tells the system which location to use when performing RF transactions. For example, the system automatically moves stock to the default intransit location in your main warehouse when you perform an RF pull transaction for an LPN or item transfer.

The default location types to assign in your staging warehouse are as follows:

Location Type	Type Code
Bulk	BL
Backorder	BO
Intransit	IT
Primary	PR
Returns	RT

You will need to define the default intransit and, potentially, backorder locations for your main warehouse as well.

The only fields you need to define in the Default Warehouse Location file for most locations are the Warehouse, Type, and Location, with the possible exception of backorder locations. You might define more than one backorder location to limit the unit quantity for each location and make picking from backorder easier. In this case, you would use the Max qty per bin field to define the amount to place in each backorder location.

Pieces per Case

The Pieces per case field in the Item file defines the maximum unit quantity contained in a case, pallet, or other unit of storage for an item. The system will avoid breaking a case when suggesting placement in a bulk or backorder location; it will suggest that any loose units be placed in primary. In addition, the system will assign a separate LPN at purchase order receiving for each case based on the pieces per case defined for the item.

See Merchandising Chapter 24: Performing Initial Item Entry (MITM) for information on defining items.

System Control Values

System Control Value	Code	Comments
Default Warehouse (A04)	A04	The warehouse that the system checks first for most transactions and inquiries.
Default Staging Warehouse (E15)	E15	The actual or logical warehouse that represents where you stage stock prior to putaway. The system attempts to place receipts in this warehouse.
LPN Tracking (E16)	E16	You must set this field to Y to use RF.
RF LPN Label Print Program (E22)	E22	These labels print when you receive a purchase order; you can also print them through the RF menu. The default program is RFR0070.
RF Bin Label Print Program (E23)	E23	You can print these labels through the RF menu. The default program is RFR0072.
RF Item Label Print Program (E24)	E24	You can print these labels through the RF menu. The default program is RFR0071.
RF Return Label Print Program (E25)	E25	The default program is RFR0073.
RF Carton Label Print Program (E27)	E27	You can print these labels when you dock a purchase order. (See Chapter 63: Docking Purchase Orders (MDPO) for more information on docking.) The default program is RFR0080.
Item Number Label Type (E28)	E28	Defines the format for printing the item/SKU code for LPN labels. Valid values are ITEMNUMBER, UPC, SHORT SKU, ITEM S-K-U, and ZERO ITEM.
Location Label Type (E32)	E32	Defines the format for printing the location code. Valid values are REGULAR and W/CTL CHAR.
Replenish from Location Type (A66)	A66	You may want to set this field to BULK so that the system does not attempt to replenish from an intransit location.
Default Company for RF Returns (F45)	F45	Controls whether your current company code defaults on the Returns Put and Pull screens.
Default Primary Warehouse in RF (G32)	G32	Defines whether an item/SKU's primary warehouse, as identified in the SKU file, defaults on each "put" screen as well as the Item Transfer Pull and Item inquiry screens.

Return Disposition Value

You can define a return disposition value to receive items that customers return into the default returns location in the staging warehouse. You can then define this return disposition value as the Default Disposition Code (C18) in the System Control file. See Customer Service Chapter 8: Establishing Return Disposition Values (WRDV).

Secured Features

You control user access to individual RF transactions through the following secured features:

• Allow Update of Inventory in RF (A47)

• Allow Access to RF Receiving (A48)

• Allow Access to RF Replenishment (A49)

• Allow Access to RF Returns (A50)

• Allow Access to RF LPN Transfer (A51)

• Allow Access to RF Item Transfer (A52)

• Allow Access to RF Inquiry (A53)

• Allow Access to RF Label Prints (A54)

• Allow Access to RF Maintenance (A55)

Changing the Default Menu

To set up your warehouse workers so that they advance directly to the RF menu when they sign on, you should enter *RFMENU in the Default menu field for their CWDirect user profile.

See Installation Chapter 3: Setting Up User Classes (WUCL) for more information on setting up users in CWDirect.

iSeries RF Subsystem Setup

Follow the steps below to set up the RF subsystem.

1. Add the CWMPGPL library to your library list. You can do this by entering ADDLIBLE CWMPGPL at a command line.

2. Run the command to create the RF subsystem. Enter the leading letters for all of your RF devices in the DEV parameter, and the name that you want to assign the subsystem in the SBS parameter. For example, if all of your devices begin with "XX", you would type CRTRFSBS DEV(XX) SBS(QGPL/RFTERM) at a command line.

3. Modify your system startup program to start this new subsystem. You can do this adding the command STRSBS RFTERM to your startup routine. The RF subsystem should be the last interactive subsystem to be started up in the morning.

4. Remove the "*ALL" entry from the interactive subsystem workstation type entry list. You can do this by typing RMVWSE SBSD(QINTER) WRKSTNTYPE(*ALL) at a command line. This will cause only workstations you name specifically to be eligible for a signon screen in the interactive subsystem.

5. Add workstation entries to your interactive subsystem to define the devices that the regular interactive subsystem can allocate. To do this, you can type the following three commands at a command line while the subsystem is active, and they will become effective after your next IPL:

 

ADDWSE SBSD(QINTER) WKSTN(DSP*)

ADDWSE SBSD(QINTER) WKSTN(SUPP*)

ADDWSE SBSD(QINTER) WKSTN(PC*)

 

The three commands above add normal NPT device names, support device names, and the bulk of the devices that you already have set up. Your system configuration administrator should review these instructions, in case your particular situation requires any additional actions.

Note: It is recommended that you make sure that your console is set up properly in the QCTL subsystem before taking the above steps in order to recover from any problems that may occur.

You can also start the RF subsystem immediately for testing purposes by typing STRSBS RFTERM at a command line.

Contact a representative with any additional questions or problems.